Austria prepares to deport Syrian migrants after Assad regime falls

BRUSSELS — Austria has announced plans to deport Syrian migrants following the fall of the country’s dictator Bashar Assad to rebel forces after 13 years of civil war, while Belgium, France, Greece and Germany are pausing Syrian asylum applications.

“I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly return and deportation program to Syria,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Austrian media, without clarifying which migration statuses would be targeted. Some 100,000 Syrians live in Austria, according to the country’s statistics agency.

One day after Syrian rebel factions, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Kingdom — toppled Damascus, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Greece, and Germany are using the success of the rebels to revise their migration policies, with all five closing their doors to asylum seekers. The U.K. has also said it will stop processing asylum applications from Syrians.

The decisions to revise asylum policies come as anti-immigrant far-right parties have surged in popularity across the European Union in recent months. Germany, for example, faces snap elections in February, with far-right parties currently performing strongly in the polls.

In a statement Monday, the UN Refugee Agency said the moment was an opportunity for Syrians to voluntarily return home while cautioning the needs in Syria are immense. “With shattered infrastructure and over 90 per cent of the population relying on humanitarian aid, urgent assistance is required as winter approaches,” it said.

In fewer than 10 days, Syrian rebels forces ended decades of rule by the Assad family, which has run Syria since a coup in 1970. More than 4.5 million Syrians have made their way to Europe since Assad’s crackdown on protests and dissent in 2011 amid the Arab Spring, leading to a long, bloody civil war during which 600,000 people were killed.

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said it will freeze asylum applications for more than 47,000 Syrian nationals, a spokesperson for BAMF told German media. Syria was the top country of origin for asylum seekers in Germany this year, according to BAMF.

On Monday, Greece put a hold on processing 9,000 Syrian asylum applications, a senior government official, who was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive matter, told POLITICO. The official added the government will decide on Friday whether to stop processing applications from Syria completely.

Belgium also revealed to POLITICO that the applications of more than 3,000 Syrians have been put on hold.

“We decided today to stop handling Syrian asylum applications for the time being,” a spokesperson for Belgium’s Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) said.

Other countries are now also considering ending asylum for Syrian applicants.

An official from France’s Interior Ministry said it will seek “to put a stop to the avalanche of appeals on asylum applications from Syrians.” They are, the official added, “working on a suspension of current asylum applications from Syria.”

Even before the fall of the Assad regime, however, European countries reported struggling to accommodate Syrian nationals.

In 2015, more than 1 million Syrians made their way by land and sea to Europe at the height of the civil war in the country. Since then, millions have settled in Europe, unsettling politics in Germany, Italy and Greece. Cyprus paused asylum applications from Syria in August, saying it was struggling to cope with the “mass arrival” of migrants.

In October, some EU countries, led by Italy, pushed to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of migrants. Assad, who was in power for 25 years until fleeing to Moscow with his family, has been accused of torture and of using chemical weapons on his own people.

With the ouster of Assad, Europe must now deal with HTS, which is considered a terrorist group by many Western countries, including the United States and the U.K. (which confirmed the government will pause asylum claims from Syrian citizens late Monday). 

“The Home Office has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situation. We keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so we can respond to emerging issues,” a U.K. Home Office spokesperson said.

On Monday the EU’s executive arm announced the bloc won’t engage with HTS “full stop,” said its spokesperson Anouar El Anouni, raising questions as to how countries will reconcile their new migration limits with the EU’s policy toward HTS.

“As HTS takes on greater responsibilities, we will need to assess not just their words, but also their actions,” Anouni added.

Several politicians from Germany’s center-right CDU party have spoken out in favor of returning many of the country’s 800,000 Syrians to their homeland in the past 24 hours.

At a Greek government briefing Monday, spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said Greece hopes for the smooth return of Syrian refugees to their homes. “The return to democratic normality makes us be cautiously optimistic, to expect the possible return of many refugees, people who suffered due to the situation in Syria,” Marinakis said.

This story has been updated.