Germany makes first deportation to Syria since 2011: What to know
There are roughly 1 million Syrians in Germany, most of whom fled there during the country’s civil war.
Germany deported a man to Syria on Tuesday, the first such removal since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, marking a significant shift in Berlin’s migration policy after years of deeming returns to Syria too dangerous.
What happened: The German Interior Ministry said a Syrian national who had been convicted of multiple criminal offenses in Germany was flown to Damascus early Tuesday morning and handed over to Syrian authorities. Germany’s BILD newspaper, which first reported the case, said the man was a Syrian citizen born in 1988 who had lived in Germany for several years. He had served a prison sentence in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia for aggravated robbery, bodily harm and extortion.
“Our society has a legitimate interest in ensuring that criminals leave our country,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in a statement. “Deportations to Syria and Afghanistan must be possible,” he added.
The deportation follows months of political signaling by the new conservative-led government that it intended to resume returns to Syria, at least for those convicted of serious crimes. In early November, Dobrindt said Berlin was “in the process of preparing returns to Syria,” citing the German government’s coalition agreement, which states: “We will deport people to Afghanistan and Syria — starting with criminals and those deemed a threat to public safety.” Also in November, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz invited Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to Germany to discuss deporting Syrian citizens with criminal records to Syria.
“I will say it again: The civil war in Syria is over. There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany,” Merz said.
The issue has seen some pushback within the government. During a visit to Damascus in late October, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul questioned whether deportations beyond “very few exceptional cases of truly serious criminals” were appropriate. Visiting Harasta, a suburb of Damascus heavily damaged during the civil war, Wadephul described the destruction as overwhelming: “I have never personally seen such a large scale of destruction. They cannot return in the short term.”
Background: In April, former Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Damascus and met with her Syrian counterpart, Anas Khattab. In a statement at the time, Faeser said Germany’s “first priority is to deport criminals and Islamist extremists as quickly as possible,” while stressing that Syrians who had built stable lives in Germany “should of course have the possibility to remain.” Others, she added, would return “when the hope of peace has become a reality,” via voluntary returns.
The break with policy comes about a year after Syria’s former government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, was toppled by a rebel offensive headed by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in December 2024.
The shift also comes amid mounting domestic political pressure and rising support for the far-right, anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany. A survey conducted earlier this month by YouGov for the German news agency dpa found that 53% of German respondents fully supported Dobrindt’s goal of reducing the number of asylum seekers entering the country, while a further 23% said they tended to support the policy. Only 15% opposed it, with the remainder undecided. Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged tougher border controls and faster deportations as part of a broader crackdown on irregular migration.
Meanwhile, the AfD won just over 20% of the vote in the last federal election in February this year, becoming the second-largest party in parliament, but was excluded from coalition talks as mainstream parties refused to govern with it.
Know more: Roughly 1 million Syrians fled to Germany to escape the civil war, many arriving during the 2015 refugee crisis. For years, German courts and authorities — in line with de jure or de facto policy across much of Europe — blocked deportations to Syria on the grounds that returnees faced a serious risk of persecution or inhumane treatment.
