On Tuesday (July 22), the German government confirmed that it has issued a complaint against a decision taken by a German court on July 7. The decision from the Superior Administrative Court in Berlin (Oberverwaltungsgericht) found that a 14-person Afghan family, who have been waiting around 18 months in Pakistan for the right to fly to Germany, should be issued with their promised visas.

According to reports, the family was told they qualified for a German airlift program to offer sanctuary to vulnerable Afghans in Germany, back in October 2023. The court in Berlin ruled that this decision was "legally binding," reported German public broadcaster ARD in its nightly news program Tagesschau.

The court found that the government did not have the right to withdraw permissions that had already been issued. In the case of this family, there are also no known security concerns linked to them, and their identity has been checked and approved, reported the Catholic news agency KNA.

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Tougher migration policies

Despite that, the German government, which is pursuing tougher policies regarding migration than its predecessor, which originally began the process of accepting the family on a special program to Germany, is attempting to throw that judgment into question.

According to a spokesperson from the Administrative court, the complaint is there and the German government now has two weeks to lodge the reasoning behind its complaint.

The program, on which the family was hoping to fly to Germany, was a special one begun in October 2022. It offered visas and safe passage for people and families who might be most at risk from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

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The family's case

Like the 14-person family, many of those who hoped to reach Germany have been waiting in Pakistan for the bureaucracy to be completed. In mid-May, InfoMigrants spoke to the family’s lawyer in Germany, Dr. Matthias Lehnert.

Lehnert told InfoMigrants the family consisted of a woman as a main claimant, her aunt, mother and her sisters and their husbands and children. He sent us a redacted version of the claim the woman and her family brought against the German government at the time.

In their legal claim against the German government, the family outlined that they had been waiting for a year and a half in Pakistan, and that they had already undergone a series of security interviews with German representatives there. In March this year, they were told their visas were ready, but according to the German newspaper Die Welt, the planned flight was cancelled.

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

As part of their claim, the family said they were worried that they would be deported from Pakistan, as has already happened with tens of thousands of other Afghans. The woman wrote that while waiting for their flight to Germany, their Pakistani visas had expired and because of new laws in Pakistan, it was no longer possible to prolong them.

In the case documents, the lawyer writes that "more than 800,000 Afghans" who had been living in Pakistan have been affected by Pakistan’s new policies against Afghan nationals.

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'Critical situation'

The unnamed woman in the family wrote in the court documents that she had applied for a Pakistani visa extension four times, and “even though I paid the fees asked of me, I was not granted a new visa, and neither was my family.”

At the time of lodging her claim against Germany, the woman said that she and her family were in a “critical situation” because if the Pakistani authorities decided to come to her place and ask her for a visa, she would have nothing to show them.

The Pakistani government said they would be sending anyone without a Proof of Residence (POR) card back at the end of June 2025. Previously, the Pakistani government had 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 woman said she was "very worried" about the reports of deportations and that the family lived in fear, feeling unable to leave the place where they are staying, for fear of being stopped by the authorities.

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

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Pro-Asyl criticizes delays

The German pro-migrant association Pro Asyl in mid-May 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.

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Around 2,400 Afghans waiting to fly to Germany

According to the German Foreign Office, as of June 20, around 2,400 Afghans in Pakistan are waiting to travel to Germany. While the current government announced it would end admission programs like the one for Afghanistan as far as possible, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Sunday pledged that Germany would admit those Afghans waiting in Pakistan, provided they hold a legally binding admission confirmation from the previous government and there are no security concerns.

Wadephul told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the programs were being ended and that "not a single new recognition" would be issued. "I consider the extent to which such decisions were made in the past to be worthy of criticism," he stated. "But if such recognition is a year old, then it can only be revoked through legal means -- for example, if it turns out the person used a false identity or is no longer at the stated location," he was quoted as saying by dpa.

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told Tageschau that of those waiting in Pakistan, "around 1,230 are part of the special Afghan program for vulnerable people, around 270 worked with the German military or other organizations in Afghanistan and around 60 people are on a special human rights list. About 740 people are part of an "bridging program" (Überbrückungsprogramm).

In April 2024, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) evaluated the programs and found that in August 2021, when the Taliban took power, more than 5,000 people were evacuated by the German army. In August 2023, around 44,100 Afghans judged to be in danger, as well as their family members, were given permission to come to Germany. At the time, around 30,300 had actually traveled to the country.

By April 2024, around 11,000 Afghans had been accepted onto the "bridging program" and around 6,500 had actually traveled. Lastly, also in April 2024, around 2,023 Afghans had received permission to be part of a special German government program (Bunesaufnahmeprogramm Afghanistan (BAP), but only 399 had actually traveled to Germany at that point.

According to the investigative magazine Panorama, all those who have been accepted will 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.

With EPD and KNA

Additional reporting from Mara Bierbach