Syrian-born Yasin Alhamdo has lived in Germany since he was nine. In March, just weeks before he was due to sit his final exams to qualify as an industrial clerk, he was told he had 30 days to leave the country.
Yasin Alhamdo arrived in Germany in 2015 at the age of nine. He excelled at school and chose to remain in the country even after his mother decided to return to Syria.
In March, just weeks before he was due to complete a three-year apprenticeship, he was served with an order to leave the country.
“I’ve spent more years in Germany than in Syria,” Alhamdo told The Local. “I have my friends here. I grew up here with my foster mother – completely German. We ate sauerkraut and roast pork every day, you know?
“And then some guy sits there and thinks, yeah, Yasin, we want to deport him now. What is that?”
Germany’s official position on asylum seekers, and in particular those from Syria, has shifted dramatically in recent years. In early December 2024, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) suspended decisions on asylum applications linked to conditions in Syria, citing the rapidly changing situation after the fall of the Assad regime.
Then in September 2025, under the direction of Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, the office again started deciding on cases involving young, able‑bodied and unaccompanied men with the aim of increasing deportations.
Alhamdo’s case raises serious questions about the real world impacts of the German government’s push to tighten immigration policies and to ramp up deportations.
Meet Yasin Alhamdo
Eleven years ago, Yasin Alhamdo arrived in Germany with his mother and siblings.
He entered a German primary school with little knowledge of the language, but caught up so quickly that he completed two grades in a single year before going on to grammar school (Gymnasium).
When his parents separated a few years later, his mother and siblings decided to return to Syria. But Alhamdo stayed behind on his own.
“I decided to stay in Germany to develop myself here, to finish my education and pursue soccer – my dream,” he said.
What followed wasn’t easy. Alhamdo, who has no contact with his father, spent time in foster care and later with a German foster family, before the Covid pandemic forced another reset.
Needing to support himself, he decided to apply for an apprenticeship, which brought him to the city of Kiel.
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“I was still 17. Working life was new to me – everything was new to me. But I gritted my teeth and told myself, ‘I have to make it’,” he said.
Now 20, Alhamdo is the youngest student in his year, and just days away from graduating from what he called one of Germany’s “most demanding commercial training programmes”.
For the last three years, he has juggled a side job at an ice cream parlour alongside his training. He sent money home to his mother in Syria, and avoided claiming benefits such as vocational training assistance (BAB), even when he would have been entitled to them.
“I don’t receive any social benefits,” he told The Local. “I pay for my own apartment. I work and I play football.”
Alhamdo as a teenager playing football for his local club. Photo provided by Yasin Alhamdo
‘You’re being deported’
Last September, Alhamdo went to a routine appointment at the immigration office regarding his residence permit. After submitting his documents, he was told that the permit would follow shortly.
Weeks later he was told something very different.
“I hadn’t heard anything, so I went back to the immigration office to ask what was happening. The woman at the front desk told me I had a hearing for an Ausweisung,” he told The Local.
Alhamdo was so unprepared it took him a moment to understand. The word for “expulsion” in German is Ausweisung, which sounds a little like the word for an ID card (Ausweis).
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Is that an ID card?”
Still at the main reception desk, the woman said, “No, you’re being expelled. You’re being deported.”
On March 3rd, Alhamdo received a formal letter instructing him to leave Germany within 30 days – a deadline that fell a month before his final exams.
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Provisional status
Despite his best efforts to do everything right – at school, at work and in his dealings with the authorities – Alhamdo has remarkably little control over his own fate.
Initially, his residency in Germany had been tied to his father. But when he turned 18 and tried to apply for a permanent settlement permit under his own name, an immigration officer took away his existing permit and replaced it with a temporary stay permit (Fiktionsbescheinigung).
Because he was no longer registered under his father, he was told he would have to begin the process of applying for a permanent settlement permit all over again.
Alhamdo on his bicycle not long after arriving in Germany. Photo provided by Yasin Alhamdo
For the next two years, that provisional status defined his life. It meant repeated renewals, repeated appointments and constant uncertainty. Meanwhile he trained, worked two jobs and kept his record clean.
It was during this period that Germany’s immigration rules were tightened and BAMF began reassessing cases, especially those involving young, able‑bodied and unaccompanied men.
As a result, Alhamdo unknowingly became vulnerable to deportation, not because he had done anything wrong, but because a procedural decision had placed him in a category that was now prioritised for removal.
READ ALSO: ‘Severely discriminated against’ – Why do skilled immigrants leave Germany?
‘I’ve integrated, I pay my taxes’
In the days after he received the deportation order, Alhamdo struggled to eat or sleep.
“I had days where I cried,” he said. “I had days where I was sick. I suffered from depression.”
At just 20, with no close family left in Germany, Alhamdo decided he had to fight.
“I hadn’t made a mistake. If I had, I might have accepted the decision. But I’d done everything right,” he said.
Alhamdo launched a petition calling on the authorities to let him stay. It received more than 40,000 signatures in weeks.
He also began speaking openly about his situation on TikTok, where one video explaining his case reached more than 1.5 million people.
The attention made a difference, not least when a lawyer offered to take on his case and managed to secure him a temporary reprieve.
Alhamdo’s deportation, which had been scheduled for April 2nd, has now been delayed for long enough that he can complete his studies. But beyond graduation, his future in Germany remains uncertain.
“I really live every day as if it were my last. I have no idea what’s going to happen to me,” he said, adding that he fears the authorities will ultimately “find a reason” to remove him.
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“But I’m here,” Alhamdo said. “I’ve integrated into German society. I pay my taxes. I stayed true to my path and promised myself one thing: I’d make my mother proud.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
