The case is due to be heard in a Berlin administrative court. The woman bringing the case is described as a "scientist and a writer" and reportedly worked for the Afghan government before the Taliban took power in 2021. She had been in Germany on several research projects as part of that work, reported Die Welt.

InfoMigrants contacted the woman's lawyer in Germany, Dr. Matthias Lehnert, to ask more about the case. Dr. Lehnert told InfoMigrants that the family group consisted of the main claimant, her aunt and mother, her sisters and their husbands and children. He also allowed us to read a redacted version of the claim, confirming the details reported in the German press.

The family has been waiting in Pakistan for more than 16 months already. Last October, they underwent a series of security interviews. In March, they received information that their visas were ready. But then the planned flight was apparently cancelled, reported Die Welt.

InfoMigrants approached the German foreign ministry about the case, sources there said that they could not comment on ongoing lawsuits.

Read AlsoFirst Afghans leave Pakistan on long-awaited flight to Germany

Fears of being deported from Pakistan

The family is worried that they might be deported from Pakistan back to Afghanistan, as has already happened with tens of thousands of other Afghans, especially because their Pakistani visas have now expired and it is no longer possible to prolong them. In the case documents, the lawyers not that "more than 800,000 Afghans" who had been living in Pakistan have been affected by this policy.

"I asked for a Pakistani visa extension four times," explained the unnamed woman "even though I paid the fees asked of me, I was not granted a new visa, and neither was my family," in the legal papers she has presented. The woman added, "Right now, in this critical situation, if they come to my place and ask me for a visa, I do not have such a document to show them."

The legal claim makes clear that even when you hold a "proof of registration" (POR) card in Pakistan, showing that you have registered your presence in the country, the Pakistani government intends to start sending POR cardholders back after June 30, 2025. The claim makes clear that the POR cards are issued via a UNHCR program and mark the holders as refugees, although not defined as such by the Geneva Convention. However, they allow for holders to benefit from temporary protection and a stay in Pakistan.

Pakistan had already declared that Afghan citizens waiting in the country to be evacuated to a third country, like Germany, should leave Pakistan by the end of March this year. The Pakistani government threatened all those who had not left Pakistan by the end of March this year with deportation to Afghanistan.

In January, Germany’s public broadcaster WDR reported at least six cases of Afghan nationals in Pakistan, who were awaiting transfer to a third country, who were deported to Afghanistan. According to WDR, as cited in the legal claim, the individuals were "arrested and then taken to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they were deported to a camp in Jalalabad, Afghanistan."

The woman added in her case, "The police even come to the guest houses and arrest Afghans. A friend of mine whose husband is a judge disappeared from their guest house last night. Other people say the police arrested them -- in the critical situation in Islamabad, we do not know who is police and who is not. But until now, they have not returned. Afghans are reporting similar things in our group WhatsApp chats, which is making me very worried."*

Since the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Germany has offered sanctuary to around 36,000 Afghans, reported Die Welt. Under Germany's previous government, several evacuation programs ran concurrently for different categories of people, although they were criticized for not bringing people out fast enough.

The most recent charter flight from Pakistan carrying Afghans to Germany who were part of one of these government programs landed in Germany at the end of April, under the last German administration. There were 138 people on board.

Read AlsoWho is eligible for Germany's Afghanistan reception program?

New government looking to wind evacuation programs down

It was reported that 20 Afghans were prevented from boarding that flight at the last minute due to "security concerns." There are around 2,450 Afghans waiting for a similar flight in Pakistan, who have already been promised a place on a German program.

The new German government has already made clear in its coalition contract, which lays out the intended policies of the new coalition, that it is looking to end the programs airlifting more people from Afghanistan and does not intend to install any similar programs in the future.

The head of the Chancellor’s office, CDU politician Thorsten Frei, told the press this week that the new government would be looking through each case carefully and checking on whether they really qualified to be part of the program.

The German pro-migrant association Pro Asyl told InfoMigrants by email that they believed it "is a disgrace for Germany that a vulnerable Afghan woman, who has already received an admission commitment from the federal government, now has to take legal action just to be allowed to enter the country."

Pro Asyl added that they believed the case "highlights the desperation of those affected, as returning to Afghanistan would mean torture, imprisonment, or even death for them."

The organization called on Germany's new federal government to "clearly acknowledge its responsibility and at least allow all threatened Afghans with admission commitments to enter the country without delay."

Pro Asyl said that if the Afghans already promised admission were not allowed into Germany, the German government could expect more lawsuits of this nature in the future. "An initial court ruling [in this case] could indicate a potential direction for future jurisprudence -- though ultimately, outcomes may vary depending on the specific circumstances of each case," concluded Pro Asyl.

Read AlsoPakistan targets Afghan refugees amid Taliban border tension

'We really worked meticulously to examine each case'

One of the former directors of the department in charge of checking Afghans' applications under the last government, Dr. Tillmann Röder, told the ARD Panorama program this week that he found this attitude problematic.

"The demand to re-examine each individual case is an affront to everyone involved in the program. To the coordination office and its staff, but also and especially to the German authorities who have thoroughly examined each case and concluded beyond doubt who these people are and that they have a reason to be admitted," Röder told Panorama.

Röder was the head of the unit examining applications between December 2022 and March 2024 and holds a PhD in law. Under his leadership during that time, Röder told ARD that "25 experts from different backgrounds worked on these cases and everything was checked by at least two different people. When there was even the tiniest doubt, we would commission internal specialists to come and check over the cases even more thoroughly. People who knew about the Afghan administration or were experts in Islamism. We really worked meticulously and I have absolutely no doubt about any of the cases we examined."

Once the applicants were checked by Röder’s department, reports ARD, they were passed on to the German Federal Office for Refugees and Migration (BAMF). Here again, the experts at BAMF, checked the plausibility of the applicants and then selected which ones could be placed in the program and granted a visa.

Read AlsoGermany takes in highest number of Afghan refugees in EU, as Taliban 'celebrate' return

Delays expected

Panorama asked the German Interior Ministry whether the new government would be trying to end the Afghan airlift program and was told, "as far as is possible." Although it is unclear whether they can row back on cases that have already been decided.

According to the German Interior Ministry, there are around 2,450 Afghans who have been given permission to travel to Germany, but are still waiting in Pakistan for an actual date for that journey. They have already been approved for the programs by several German offices, including the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesverfassungsschutz), the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) and the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei).

Among those Afghans waiting in Pakistan are human rights activists, people who worked for the German army in Afghanistan, as well as for German aid organizations, high-up Afghan government functionaries and people who worked in the office of the former vice President Amrullah Saleh.

One unnamed former Afghan government employee told Panorama: "As part of my political work, and in public speeches and articles, I often attacked Taliban ideology. For that reason, I am in danger in Afghanistan. Many of my former colleagues have been arrested in Afghanistan and executed."

A search through Afghan media and also on the man’s Facebook profile uncovers hundreds of posts criticizing the Taliban, reports ARD. He is one of those waiting in Pakistan with his wife and children. They have been waiting for over a year for a flight to Germany.

Because of the growing conflict between India and Pakistan, some German officials have been withdrawn from Pakistan, which is complicating the situation still further, reports Panorama. It is not clear when some of those officials will be able to return to Pakistan to complete the necessary paperwork enabling the Afghans waiting to board a flight to Germany.

Could the case set a precedent?

Dr. Lehnert, the claimant's lawyer, believes that the case should be decided in the next two months, and "possibly even sooner." He wrote that seeing the case as a "precedent" was not something that the German legal system was really familiar with.

However, the outcome of this case could be seen as sending a "signal" for any other potential cases that might be brought.

Dr. Lehnert added that he did not know at the moment of any similar cases that were being, or had been brought, but he could imagine a scenario where more similar cases of this nature might be brought in the future.

According to the current claimant's case, the woman and her family are de facto unable to leave the accommodation where they are staying, because they fear being stopped by the Pakistani authorities at any point and sent back to Afghanistan. Because of their fears, the family is not able to send the children in the group to school, underlines the legal papers, or even seek medical help from a doctor.

The case concludes that since there are no obvious grounds why the woman and her family group have not yet received a visa, their visa process should be sped up, because waiting longer is just not possible for them under the conditions in which they are now forced to live in Pakistan.

*Language slightly changed to make it more readable.

 With additional reporting from Mara Bierbach