Afghanistan Times
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KABUL – A powerful rebuke to Germany’s rightward shift on immigration, a Berlin court ruled Tuesday that the government must issue visas to Afghan refugees who were previously promised resettlement under humanitarian programs — despite Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s move to shut them down.
The case was brought by an Afghan woman and 13 members of her family, all of whom have been stranded in Pakistan after receiving final approval to resettle in Germany. The court found their legal claim indisputable: the German government had made a “legally binding and irrevocable” commitment, and it could not abandon those promises for political convenience.
“Germany cannot free itself from this commitment entered into voluntarily,” the judges wrote, adding that all family members had been fully vetted and posed no security threat. The court also acknowledged that deportation to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan would likely endanger their lives — a risk it deemed credible.
The ruling comes amid a sweeping anti-immigration push by the Merz government, which has vowed to halt refugee admissions and resume deportations to countries like Afghanistan and Syria. The policy shift follows a series of high-profile attacks and the growing influence of far-right parties, which made migration a decisive issue in February’s elections.
After the Taliban seized power in 2021, Germany launched several special programs to evacuate vulnerable Afghans — including journalists, women’s rights activists, and former local staff of German forces. Since then, around 36,500 Afghans have been resettled by various pathways. But the program has been on pause for months, leaving at least 2,400 approved Afghans stuck in legal limbo in Pakistan, with no clarity from Berlin.
NGOs warn that another 17,000 are still in the early stages of the now-dormant application process.
The Foreign Ministry has not yet responded to the court ruling, which can still be appealed. Meanwhile, Berlin’s administrative court confirmed that roughly 40 similar cases are pending — each potentially forcing the government to honor earlier commitments it now seeks to undo.
While the court acknowledged that the Merz government has the right to terminate the admissions program going forward, it ruled unequivocally that Germany cannot walk back past promises.
