Saxony-Anhalt Sets Case-by-Case Syria Policy, Expands Voluntary Returns

Overview

• In a tense Landtag session in Magdeburg, Interior Minister Tamara Zieschang said integrated Syrians with secure residence may stay, while those without a right to remain must leave.
• The state logged 18 voluntary departures in 2024, 222 in 2025, and 38 in the first two months of 2026, and it will offer counseling in the reception centers in Halberstadt and Stendal.
• FDP lawmaker Guido Kosmehl said deportations and returns to Syria have begun, and Zieschang said about 80% of current asylum applications by Syrians are being rejected.
• Zieschang reported around 29,000 Syrians in the state, with about one in three of working age in jobs that pay into social insurance and roughly 150 Syrian doctors, plus more than 4,000 naturalizations in five years.
• The debate fractured parties as AfD’s Matthias Büttner called Germany “the social welfare office of the world,” while SPD’s Holger Hövelmann denounced what he called a “firework of xenophobia.”