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Federal Government Halts Berlin’s Private Family Reunification Program

The decision bars new entries or renewals of the 2018 initiative that required families to cover insurance costs until state support took effect.

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Overview

  • Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt informed Berlin Finance Senator Stefan Evers that the Interior Ministry will grant no consent for new or extended state-run family reunification schemes.
  • Since its 2018 launch by the city’s red-red-green coalition, the program has allowed more than 4,000 Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis to bring relatives to Berlin under privately financed guarantees.
  • Berlin’s finance office warned that families’ five-year insurance obligations lacked sufficient safeguards against future burdens on the state budget once private guarantees expired.
  • The veto follows June’s Bundestag suspension of family reunification for subsidiary protection beneficiaries and underscores a tougher federal stance on migration policy.
  • Berlin authorities must now suspend the scheme until federal approval is granted, setting up a clash between the city senate and the national Interior Ministry.