One year after the introduction of family reunifications for refugees who have been given subsidiary protection in Germany, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for the German government to also recognize siblings as family members that could become eligible for reunification.
The UN refugee agency's German representative Dominik Bartsch stressed that "in other cultures, there is hardly anything more valuable to people than family.
"Hence it doesn't make any sense that there are underage refugee who can reunite with their parents but not with their underage siblings. This is turning the right (to family reunifications) into a farce," Bartsch said in Berlin on Wednesday, calling on the German government to reform its law governing family reunifications.
Reunifications: complicated bureaucracies
Bartsch added that a broader interpretation of the term "nuclear family" needed to be employed. "Younger siblings certainly are part of a family. No mother and no father in the world would ever dare question that, whether they're German or Syrian."
He also highlighted that in certain cases, young people could be rejected their family reunifications only because they turned 18 during the process. "There has to be a way for people like these to also stay united with their families," he further said.
According to Bartsch, the procedures involved in family reunifications have also become too bureaucratic. He listed that the procedure of obtaining a visa for family members to join their relatives in Germany was extremely complicated and time-consuming, "with expectations involved that aren't based on any reality."
Special case of subsidiary protection
Refugees generally have a right to family reunification in Germany. However, in the case of so-called refugees with subsidiary protection, there is a special law in place that only started allowing them to apply for reunifications as of August 1, 2018 — with no more than 1,000 applications allowed per month across the country.
However, under German law, family reunifications only allow for wives and husband to reunite along with their underage children. In cases of an underage minor, they can apply to send for their parents — but not their brothers and sisters.
"No parent is going to leave behind a young child in Damascus or Aleppo to reunite with their son or daughter in Germany," Bartsch said.
"For this reason, this law is nothing by a mere façade."