“Political parties want to blame their political crisis on refugees. While in recent years, due to the corona [virus] and the war in Ukraine, an economic crisis has emerged in Germany,” Irfan Karim from the Iraqi Refugees Union in Germany told Rudaw, adding that 10,000 asylum seekers from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are at risk of being deported.
According to Karim, around five to six thousand people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region go to Germany annually seeking refugee status.
Germany hosts one of the largest refugee populations worldwide. As of September, nearly 175,000 asylum claims were made in the country in 2024, according to figures from the United Nations.
German parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on February 23. Support is at an all-time high for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party that opposes migration. The party has also publicly condoned mass deportations.
In late January, the German parliament passed a motion that tightens migration rules. It contains five points: preventing illegal immigration, deporting illegal immigrants, deporting foreign criminals, imprisoning immigrants who must leave Germany, and ending family reunification.
Tens of thousands of mostly young people leave Iraq and the Kurdistan Region for Europe annually in search of a better life, using smuggling routes. Many hope to settle in Germany.
