Interview with Felix Banaszak during summer months discussing family reunification, verified by fact-checking
Germany has been a destination for many seeking refuge, and the issue of family reunification has been a contentious one. In 2024, the federal government granted subsidiary protection to 75,092 individuals, with the majority hailing from Syria. However, it's important to note that family reunification is not a legal claim for those granted subsidiary protection, unlike asylum seekers and recognized refugees.
Approximately 80% of those who came to Germany through family reunification in 2024 were women and children. More than one-third of family reunification visas were given to children under 18 years old, totalling 45,452 children. The majority of visa recipients were spouses, although the exact figures for women are not clearly recorded statistically. Given the gender distribution among Syrian people who receive subsidiary protection in Germany, it's likely that a large proportion of the spouse visas were issued to women.
In the first half of 2024, 1,380 Syrian women applied for a visa for spousal reunification at the German embassy. Around 15,800 people from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq received a visa for family reunification, with 3,631 of these being children from Syria, which is 37% of the visas issued for the country.
The federal government suspended family reunification for those with subsidiary protection for two years starting from June 27, 2025. This is not the first time such a suspension has occurred, as a previous suspension took place from March 2016 to July 2018. The suspension has been a recurring issue, and family reunification has been limited to 1,000 people per month.
It's worth noting that the federal chairman of the Greens, Felix Banaszak, faced questions on August 3rd regarding various topics, including the electricity tax, Deutsche Bahn, and the current federal government's migration policy. During this discussion, Banaszak stated that 80 percent of women and children come to Germany through family reunification. While this statement seems possible, there are no clear evidence for it.
The Federal Foreign Office publishes figures on all issued visas but does not differentiate them according to the granted forms of protection. Consequently, the statistical recording of family reunification does not differentiate according to the form of protection that allows people to come to Germany. This lack of differentiation in statistical recording makes it challenging to provide precise figures on the gender distribution of visa recipients.
Subsidiary protection can be granted to anyone in Germany who faces severe human rights violations or whose life is at risk. This form of protection, while not guaranteeing family reunification, provides a measure of safety and stability for those in need.
The majority of CDU/CSU, SPD, and AfD voted in favor of the family reunification suspension. This decision reflects the ongoing debate and concern surrounding family reunification in Germany.
As of December 31, 2024, there were over 381,000 people with subsidiary protection in Germany, with nearly two-thirds being male. The issue of family reunification and subsidiary protection continues to be a complex and contentious one in German politics.
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