Germany orders halt on UN refugee resettlement program

Germany has ordered a temporary halt to a UN refugee resettlement program it has been participating in for years, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) confirmed on Tuesday.

The program is designed for refugees in particular need of protection, such as children, victims of torture, or people in dire need of medical treatment, who cannot stay in their first country of arrival.

UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesman for Germany, Chris Melzer, has said that the program was stopped "during the coalition negotiations" that are ongoing between the conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) bloc and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

"We assume that it will continue," as soon as there is a new interior minister, he said.

Germany's Merz and SPD reach preliminary deal02:17Indeed, the BAMF confirmed to German news agency DPA that they stopped accepting applications for the program in mid-March, and are only processing cases that were already in advanced stages.

Berlin has participated in the scheme since 2012, taking in particularly vulnerable refugees from other arrival countries and offering them a three-year residency permit. With an average of 5,000 recipients a year, Germany took in the third-largest group of people after the US and Canada.

More than half of the refugees using this program have come from Syria, but there have also been asylum seekers from Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Eritrea.

Germany had promised the European Commission 6,550 admissions a year in 2024 and 2025, for which it received some EU funding.

Why are Germany's immigration policies changing?
Likely future Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) turned immigration into one of his main campaign themes in the leadup to Germany's federal election in February.

Capitalizing on a fear of a connection between immigration and crime — a connection not borne out by data — he also tried and failed to pass a set of strict immigration rules in the run-up to the vote.

Critics argued that the proposed regulations, such as permanent border controls, violated both German and EU law. Moreover, Merz was accused not only of catering to far-right voters but of having effectively ended the political "firewall" against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

While the new coalition is expected to restart the UN program, an initial draft of their governing agreement indicates that they will shutter most other similar schemes, including one for people fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan. New programs, more focused on Germany's labor market needs, are expected to replace the old ones.

However, the UNHCR indicated it is more concerned by the behavior of the new administration in Washington under President Donald Trump, who canceled US participation in the resettlement program during his first day in office.

Despite a court order to restart application procedures, the Trump government has shown a determination not to abide by the judge's ruling.