‘Point Zero’: Syrian Refugees after the German Elections

“I felt like I went back to Point Zero,” Sara said, reflecting on the moment when the results of the German elections were announced on February 24, 2025. The conservative center and the far- right wing parties came out as the winner of the elections. That moment took her back nine years—to when she first arrived in Germany with her siblings on a family reunification visa, following a year-long journey that began with her mother’s harrowing 11-day voyage at sea, a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Point Zero, for Sara is “a refugee with no agency, no sense of security, bearing huge responsibility for her family, trying to figure things out, not knowing where to go, and having no backbone.” At that moment, she felt she was back at Point Zero. 

Sara’s feeling of being “back at Point Zero” was not just a personal emotional state.

It reflected the broader uncertainty that thousands of refugees and immigrants in Germany feel today. Migration is no longer seen as a humanitarian issue but as a political bargaining chip. The CDU¹’s attempts to tighten migration laws, at times backed by the AfD², have fueled a dangerous narrative: one that blames societal problems on refugees while ignoring structural issues like inequality, racism, and austerity policies.

Sara’s story of struggling against both external racism and internalized expectations to be the “perfect immigrant” is emblematic of the lived contradiction many refugees in Germany experience today: being simultaneously essentialized and excluded.

Before arriving in Germany, Sara, her mother, and her four siblings sought refuge in Egypt, fleeing war and death in Syria.. She had hoped Germany would offer the opposite: safety and the chance to build a stable life. In 2015, the year then-Chancellor Angela Merkel made the historic decision to allow over a million  asylum seekers into Germany, Sara believed she was coming to a country that was “treating refugees well, welcoming them.”

Hoping for a fresh start, her family embarked on what she described as “a kind of salvation in a very emotional sense.”

Since she entered Germany on a visa, Sara did not experience the typical refugee journey of living in a camp. However, she spoke with sadness about how many of her fellow refugees faced restrictions on their freedom of movement, having to present documents at every turn, constantly reminded of their status.

“They forced you to wear hijab at this age?”

Sara was so lucky with her social worker. She was caught off guard when a social worker at an NGO asked her this. Later, the same woman bluntly told her, “Germans do not want you here”. 

"Überlegenheit"—the German word for "superiority"—is how Sara describes her first reality checks.

Still, she worked hard to be the perfect immigrant, learning the language, attending university, and striving to “integrate” until she obtained citizenship after six years. But the path was anything but smooth. 

Leaving for university and moving to a new city brought another challenging  transition. Even after building a social circle,, she never escaped the feeling of being “very exotic—and not in a positive sense .” Despite not fitting into stereotypes about (Muslim) refugees, she was still trapped in them.

Before the recent elections, a major reality check came with the Sheikh Jarrah incident in East-Jerusalem in 2021, when Israeli settlers tried to forcefully expel Palestinian families  from their homes. But even that paled in comparison to the German response to the war on Gaza that followed later..

Sara realized that Germany’s refugee welcome had always been highly conditional tied to a specific time and political context. In 2015, there was a strong wave of openness toward refugees, particularly driven by an engaged civil society eager to support the newcomers. However, this atmosphere shifted rapidly as more conservative parties began to frame the influx of migrants as a problem. The situation deteriorated further when the AfD gained popularity, redirecting its focus from Eurozone concerns to an overtly anti-migration agenda.Even if she hadn’t expect a better response from Germany, she was still shocked. The repression and censorship of demonstrators calling for an end to the violence was alarming. In major German newspapers, protesters were labeled “barbarians” a term inherently rooted in racism. The broader racist campaign became fuel not only for the far-right but also for centrist parties, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD. Scholz himself declared, “Wir müssen endlich im großen Stil abschieben” (“We must finally deport on a large scale”).

For Sara, the election results reflected how the right-wing capitalized on this growing racism, advancing their populist rhetoric, particularly against refugees and immigrants.

In this climate of rising right-wing sentiment in Germany and beyond, Sara voted for those who avoided such rhetoric and instead focused on structural issues in society

Interestingly, as the AfD gained traction on the far right, the leftist party at the other end of the spectrum also saw a rise in popularity during the last elections — particularly among young people who oppose anti-migration narratives and seek to push back against far-right tendencies in Germany.

Election results were a stark reminder of the precariousness of her family’s situation. The CDU’s new chancellor has expressed a commitment to imposing constraints on refugees and immigrants, a stance that resonates with AfD’s anti-immigration rhetoric. Sara fears that her family could be deported back to Syria, a country ravaged by over a decade of armed conflict, economic collapse, and infrastructural destruction. In Syria, basic necessities like electricity remain scarce, and the country lacks resources for rebuilding in the near future. After 14 years of conflict, half the population remains displaced, and essential infrastructure is in ruins. Millions lack access to water, electricity, food security, healthcare, and job opportunities.

The far right tendencies is further amplified in the current German political climate. The recent elections saw Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, rise to power partially by adopting rhetoric traditionally associated with the far-right AfD. In January, Merz broke a long-standing political taboo by cooperating with the AfD to push forward a migration control resolution. This move signaled the mainstreaming of hardline anti-migration policies in Germany and broke further the taboo of not cooperating with AfD in order to succeed with policy making.

Yet, as much as Merz built his campaign on promises of strict deportations and border controls, his coalition with the Social Democrats already shows the limits of these promises. Deporting Syrians, for example, remains a legal and moral minefield, especially given Syria’s volatile reality.

Syria remains unsafe, even after the fall of the regime, with the potential for civil war and other threats at any moment.

This fear is not unfounded. While European officials, including Germany’s new government, have increasingly floated the idea of returning Syrian refugees, Syria itself tells a very different story. In March 2025 alone, we saw the massacares againt the alawites, the Syrian coastal region, supposedly more stable area, left dozens dead, raising once again the alarm of civil war and insecurity.

Ironically, the German and Austrian Interior Ministers had to abruptly cancel their planned visit to Damascus due to concrete security threats a move that exposed the contradiction in Germany’s return rhetoric. If even European ministers cannot guarantee their safety in Syria, how realistic—or ethical—is it to demand that refugees return there?

Even though Sara has a German citizenship, does not feel safe. With her immigrant background, she fears that her citizenship could be revoked under new laws that define “committing a crime” in vague and politically motivated terms. According to the new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, even participating in a pro-Palestinian protest could be grounds for losing citizenship, reinforcing the idea that “not all citizens are the same.”
 

Not even studying political science provided a space for open political discussions when it came to the genocide in Gaza. Instead, she found her suffering dismissed and minimized in academic circles, deepening her sense of alienation. The realization hit hard:

Instead of pressure to return and the threat of deportation, a dignified and humane approach is needed. Germany has a responsibility toward those who sought protection here. Those who wish to stay must be given a genuine perspective for remaining. Those who wish to leave should be able to do so voluntarily and without facing existential threats.

All Syrian refugees — regardless of their residence status — must be granted the freedom to re-enter Syria so they can make informed decisions about possible return, support reconstruction initiatives, transfer money to the country, and strengthen their families on the ground.

^{1.The Christian Democratic Party (CDU) is the German conservative center party. CDU won the election in February 2025 and will provide the chancellor for the upcoming government.}

^{2. The Alternative for Grmany (AfD) is a German far- right wing party. In recent years, the party has grown significantly in strength, despite being widely regarded as far-right and anti-democratic.}