Deportation of Hessian twin students causes outrage!

Deportation of Hessian twin students causes outrage!

In Hesse, an Amnesty case caused quite a stir: a Palestinian family, consisting of Aziza A. and her 15-year-old twins Janna and Joud, were to be deported. But the attempt to return the three to Romania failed last Saturday because the mother was not at home and the girls remained alone in the apartment. The event brought not only those affected, but also numerous supporters to the scene, who denounced the harshness of the procedure.

The family has been living in Germany since November 2021 and should actually have been leaving since January 2025. Her asylum application was rejected in August 2022. The return procedure was based on the Dublin Convention, which regulates the allocation of asylum seekers. [Tagesschau] points to the challenges of this system: In recent years, tens of thousands of cases have not been processed as planned, which is often due to poor agreements between the countries or delays by the German authorities. In this particular case, too, the family was promised that repatriation would be uncomplicated - now it becomes clear how difficult it can be in practice.

Emotional witness reports and political reactions

Janna and Joud are well integrated into their school, have found a stable environment in Hesse and dream of becoming educators. In an earlier conversation, Janna reported on violence and discrimination in Romania and emphasized that her family had finally found a home in Germany. Joud is also very afraid of another deportation attempt and the possibility that the police could come, which further increases the emotional pressure on the family. The Hessian Refugee Council expressed outrage at the deportation before the girls were given their certificates.

Interior Minister Roman Poseck from the CDU confirmed an increase in deportations in Hesse to 1,017 people in the first half of 2025, which means an increase of 30 percent compared to the previous year. He sees deportations as a necessary measure within a constitutional state. At the same time, these rigorous measures are increasingly met with contradiction - the Greens in the state parliament and the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband criticize the state government's hard line and call for a rethink.

Dublin proceedings under pressure

According to information from [DW], the Dublin procedure has a questionable record overall. In 2023, over 74,000 transfers were requested, but only 5,053 were actually carried out. The situation is similar for 2024, where of over 74,500 applications only 5,827 were successful. Countries like Italy make it particularly difficult, and despite significant readmission approvals, they only actually accept returns in a few cases. These systemic problems not only represent a significant hurdle for asylum seekers, they also undermine the credibility of the entire asylum system in the EU.

In the heated debate about migration and integration, the case of the A. family remains a sad example of how people who get involved in a new society can fail because of bureaucratic hurdles. While the family is fighting to stay in Germany, there are no clear solutions for dealing with such cases in the existing asylum system and the associated international regulations.