05/28/2025May 28, 2025
Cabinet to discuss draft bill on curbing family reunification
German Interior Minister will present a bill to Cabinet on Wednesday that would see
Under the draft bill, which is in line with the coalition deal of Chancellor ‘s conservatives and the center-left , this possibility would be suspended for two years in the case of refugees with limited protection status.
The new rules would affect refugees who have not received asylum or full protection in Germany but who are allowed to stay in the country because they could face political persecution, torture or death sentences in their home countries. Such refugees include many who have fled civil war in their countries.
Altogether 388,074 such refugees were living in Germany at the end of March, about three-quarters of them from , according to government figures.
The draft bill provides for exemptions in particularly urgent cases.
Dobrindt, from the conservative Bavarian , has defended the bill in comments to the mass-circulation Bild daily.
“Until now, 1,000 people per month have been able to follow their families to Germany. That is now over,” he said.
“We must significantly reduce the pull factors to Germany. This is another way of showing that migration policy in Germany has changed,” he added.
However, the opposition has sharply criticized the plans, with Green politician Marcel Emmerich saying that more compassion could be expected from parties such as Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the CSU that have “Christian” in their names.
In remarks to the dailies Stuttgarter Zeitung and Stuttgarter Nachrichten, he called the draft bill “a policy that tears families apart, drives people into isolation, heightens psychological pressure and massively hinders integration.”
The post Germany updates: Cabinet mulls family reunification curbs appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
