German Chancellor Friedrich Merz outlined plans on Monday to send back 80 percent of Syrians currently living in Germany. He announced the proposal during a joint press conference with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Merz asked al-Sharaa to accept Syrians who no longer hold valid residence permits in Germany. In return for assistance with their repatriation, the German chancellor pledged support for Syria’s reconstruction.
The problem, however, is that most Syrian migrants cannot, in practice, be deported in a way that complies with the legal protections they enjoy. Moreover, Damascus is primarily interested in the return of skilled workers—not criminals.
The press conference marked the culmination of a state-level visit by President al-Sharaa to the Federal Republic of Germany.
“The civil war has ended, and there is now, in principle, a перспектива for returns to Syria. We want to make this possible together,” the leaders agreed.
Ahmed al-Sharaa made no secret of the fact that Syria needs both funding and manpower to rebuild a country devastated by years of civil war. Merz, in turn, openly sees this as an opportunity to remove Syrians who are residing in Germany illegally and contributing to the migration crisis. To that end, the chancellor has established a “joint task force.” The unit—comprising representatives from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry for Economic Development, and the Federal Chancellery—is expected to work out the terms of cooperation with the Syrian side in the coming days.
In the longer term, over the next three years, approximately 80 percent of Syrians currently living in Germany are expected to return to their homeland, Merz stated.
The issue is that, from a legal standpoint, this process will be neither simple nor inexpensive.
Ten Years in the Federal Republic
The migration crisis that shook Europe in 2015 was largely a consequence of the Syrian civil war. Nearly five million people fled the country during the conflict. Statistics show that since 2015, more than one million Syrians have arrived in Germany, with an additional 160,000 entering through family reunification programs.
Angela Merkel, then Germany’s chancellor, famously declared “wir schaffen das” (“we can manage this”), assuming that Syrian citizens would return home once the war ended. That has not happened. To date, only around 6,500 Syrians have returned to their homeland.
The prolonged duration of the civil war produced another significant consequence. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians who arrived in Germany more than a decade ago have, after years spent in their new country, begun to meet the requirements for German citizenship. Many have taken advantage of this opportunity. In 2024 alone, more than 83,000 Syrians were naturalized—the largest group of foreigners to obtain German citizenship that year. Since 2015, a total of 246,359 Syrians have acquired German citizenship, with the trend accelerating sharply over the past six years.
Citizenship is not the only obstacle to deportation. Of the more than one million Syrians who have arrived in Germany over the past decade, a significant portion enjoy various forms of legal protection.
More recent data from the federal government’s Central Register of Foreigners (AZR), as of November 30, 2025, illustrates the heterogeneity of this group. Of the 940,401 Syrian nationals in Germany, 513,140 held protected status. This included 2,139 individuals granted asylum, 210,287 recognized refugees, 293,614 beneficiaries of subsidiary protection, and 6,308 individuals subject to a deportation ban. Another 86,153 Syrians were in the asylum process. A total of 10,253 people were required to leave the country, including 9,369 with tolerated stay status. In addition, large groups held other residence permits, such as humanitarian, family, or permanent residence permits.
As noted by Apollo News, this clearly illustrates the scale of the issue: it is not only about those obliged to leave, but primarily about hundreds of thousands of people with protected status or otherwise secure residence rights.
For now, Chancellor Merz has declared that he intends primarily to deport criminals and “individuals abusing German hospitality.” Damascus, however, is seeking arrangements that would allow skilled workers to move between the two countries, enabling them to contribute to Syria’s reconstruction.
Weak Integration of Syrians
One of the less openly discussed issues is the weak integration of Syrians into German society. The terrorist attack during a festival in Solingen in August 2024 is an extreme example of this phenomenon. However, there are many more challenges related to the difficulties Syrians face in adapting to new cultural conditions.
The portal niezalezna.pl spoke with a doctor working in a Berlin hospital (name withheld). She reported that in nearly 10 years of her professional career, no group has posed as many challenges in cooperation as Syrian men. Disregard for requests—and even direct instructions—issued by women in senior positions is reportedly common, as are demands that such instructions be validated by a male superior. Due to political correctness and fear of accusations of racism, hospital management often turns a blind eye to such incidents, even when Syrian nurses are involved.
In official statistics, however, these individuals are classified as either naturalized citizens or as successfully integrated participants in the German labor market.