Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 20)

John McPhee says writers should “earn their images,” that the work of writing is to see precisely, not decorate vaguely. The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail and Aleppo After the Fall, respectively by Dan Barry and Robert Worth, are exactly doing that, stripping big, exhausted subjects (sex work, war) of abstraction by shrinking them to human scale.

Barry’s story starts mid-fall: a woman, SiSi, plunging from a fourth-floor balcony in Queens. It’s the kind of scene that could’ve been tabloid, but Barry slows it down. He rewinds time, reconstructing her world with the rotisserie chicken from Kissena Boulevard, the WeChat calls to her brother, the cat figurine waving beside the door. Every detail insists that she existed, that she occupied a specific corner of New York. In McPhee’s terms, Barry builds a frame of reference sturdy enough to hold empathy, without borrowed drama or moralizing, just the patient mapping of one life against the system that erased it.

Worth’s Aleppo After the Fall is very similar in this sense. Where Barry writes about a woman in a city too alive to notice her, Worth writes about a man in a city emptied of everything. Abu Sami, who stayed through the siege of Aleppo, has survived four years alone drinking boiled rainwater, reading Freud by candlelight, tending a grapevine. He’s both utterly ordinary and mythic. Through him, Worth reveals a nation’s ruin without ever saying so directly. The politics—Russia, Assad, the rebels—blur at the edges, while the clarity is limited to Abu Sami’s courtyard, in the sunlight filtering through shrapnel holes.

Both pieces follow McPhee’s idea that the writer’s loyalty is to the observed world, not to the headline. Barry’s Queens and Worth’s Aleppo couldn’t be further apart, but both are written from the same position, a few steps back.

On the morning of March 31, 2025, Ekaterina Fomina waited anxiously in Berlin. She was expecting a message from her lawyer, Yulia Kuznetsova, with an update on her case. It was only the fourth session, and her lawyer had not yet been allowed to present their defense.

Then her phone flashed. It was not her lawyer, but a colleague. More notifications followed. Fomina’s name began to appear across Russian media. Within half an hour, the Moscow court handling her case had sentenced her in absentia to eight and a half years in prison for “spreading fake news” about the Russian army, one of the heaviest penalties under the law.

“I was crying a lot,” she said. “Because it is not about committing a crime and receiving a fair sentence. It is about realizing that your country calls you a terrorist.”

Fomina, a former reporter for Important Stories and now a documentary producer for the Russian-language TV channel Dozhd (TV Rain), had long expected prosecution. She had investigated war crimes in Bucha and Andreevka during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One Russian soldier confessed to her that he had killed a civilian, and she verified the victim’s identity. “There could not be any coincidences in this situation,” she said. “But the truth does not matter for this case.”

When the verdict came, Fomina decided to speak publicly about her prosecution, something few defendants in Russia can do. “Those who are arrested cannot defend themselves,” she explained. “So I started covering my own case, showing how absurd it is.” In one video, she called one of the supposed witnesses who had testified against her, a man who had never met her but accused her of “hurting patriotic feelings.” On the call, he at first did not remember who she was. When she told him, he laughed and said she had “deserved it.”

“It is so absurd,” Fomina said. “The man who decided my destiny could not even recognize my face.”

Fomina’s sentence is part of a sweeping campaign to silence independent journalists who reported on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The “fake news” law, adopted in March 2022, criminalized any information about the military that diverged from official statements. In the two years since, it has become the main legal instrument for targeting reporters, editors, and even ordinary citizens who documented the war’s realities. 

Berlin, where Fomina now lives, has become the informal capital of this fractured press in exile. Since the war began, hundreds of Russian journalists have relocated to the city, supported by a fragile network of advocacy groups and NGOs. From co-working spaces and temporary studios, they continue to publish and broadcast for audiences that often need VPNs to access their content. Yet safety abroad comes with a different kind of constraint: distance. The very freedom that allows them to keep speaking also severs their connection to the country they are speaking about.

For Fomina, the verdict did not change her physical circumstances, but it marked an irreversible shift. She could no longer think of herself as a journalist working outside Russia—she had become one who could never go back.

Following reading the articles for this week, the ledes on the NYT articles about the state of Aleppo after its falling, and about Song Yang’s death were the strongest. In the sex worker piece, by starting off with falling, I felt the piece was cinematic given its use of photos and videos, predominantly taken at night when the streetlights were on. This contributed to setting the scene of a fall up in my mind and I wanted to read how it would unravel. I really enjoyed the structure of this piece by hooking me in with the fall, from the author directly going back and telling me as the reader how she arrived in Queens from China, her death, her family seeking the truth themselves, and then finally this overlooking message on immigrants who want to make it big in America, but ultimately don’t so what is there next step.  Song Yang’s occupation and eventual death unfortunately are just one answer to that question.

Similarly with the article on Aleppo, the article opens with Abu Sami leaving his house and having human interaction for the first time in four and a half years. Given he had been all alone for years while his city was being destroyed, I wanted to know why this man stayed put and were there people out there still looking for him after all of those years. Whereas the first one feels like a film, this feels more like a documentary, particularly because the author walks around old sites and gets interviews with some recounting Aleppo before the destruction. This article however I think does a bit much as it doesn’t really keep the same focus on Abu Sami like the other article did with Song Yang. I think the reporter was so focused on getting back to the region themselves because they missed reporting there, that he put his own personal motivatives/priorities at times ahead of the actual people that had to survive.

The structure for the Times article about AI in Gaza is a little more straightforward, especially since the article is shorter and there is not a central character. Reading the article, it follows one common problem of the use of artificial intelligence in militaries across the world. I think the article also explains it very well because I’m not sure many people think of the military when it comes to artificial intelligence. I also enjoyed that they were able to get both people and perspectives from the IDF in Israel as well as some senators and representatives who have called for greater regulation of AI in the US.

 

Upstairs, four college students sift through a pile of wooden planks and rubbery strips of wallpaper, occasionally landing on treasure; a dusty matchbox or crinkled movie poster; delicate bird skulls; a Hello Dolly vinyl; a bottle of liquor half-full. When they come across a roll of film, they hold it up to the window, angling it toward the sunlight to reveal faded images. Most of it is porn. The boys joke, “What kind of movie theatre was this place?” 

The students are far from home, in Gummersbach, Germany. They are here because they signed up for a mission trip with their church — First Baptist Church (FBC), a megachurch in Hendersonville, Tennessee. For most, it is their first time leaving the country. 

Downstairs, more American missionaries of varying ages, and around twenty Ukrainians, are drilling holes and hauling branches into large red containers in the front yard. Among them is Pastor Nikolas Skopych, an unassuming man with a wiry salt-and-pepper beard and kind eyes. In this scene of wreckage, you might find him wielding an electric floor-grinder, sparks flying behind him, or else quietly circulating to ensure everyone has a task.  It’s slow work, but everyone is focused. All are intent on transforming this abandoned, cavernous theatre – once known as Germania Lichtspieltheater and still displaying signs for Indiana Jones 4 in its ticket booth – into a church.  

The church is intended to serve as a house of worship and community hall for the upwards of 1000 Ukrainian refugees now residing in Gummersbach. It is just one of 64 Ukrainian Churches which have been “planted” in Germany since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. And these are just 64 out of 152 Ukrainian churches which have been planted across Europe. 

American missionaries have played a significant role in growing these churches, as they have throughout history. Michael McClanahan, the head of missions at FBC in Tennessee expressed his hope that this mission, and those like it, would extend beyond Gummersbach. “This will be a central training hub,” he said. “It will be an opportunity, not only for Ukrainian churches to be expanded, but also, I feel that this is the beginning of a revival of Christianity in Europe.” 

Though American evangelicals have notably flip-flopped in their views on Ukraine, often echoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s stances, the war is transforming the relationship between Ukrainian and American evangelicals. In some ways, the war has both strained and strengthened this bond, revealing the extent to which the groups are religiously and politically intertwined. And churches like Almaz reveal that the relationship between these nationalities is not confined to their countries — America and Ukraine — but is now seeping into Europe, where millions of Ukrainian refugees have fled.

Rough Outline for Rest of Piece:

I. Context of Evangelicalism reaching Ukraine and how Pastor Nikolas came to Christianity through American evangelism in Kyiv, leading up to Pastor Nikolas’ moving to Gummersbach and founding Almaz [Interviews with Pastor Nikolas, academic experts on evangelical Christianity in Ukriane]

II. How FBC Hendersonville got involved in the mission, spreading out into the greater narrative about how American evangelicals see Ukraine including a scene with Michael Bible, and FBC member who has sponsored 8 Ukrainians through U4U and has a different relationship with Ukraine (and Trump) than most American Evangelicals [interviews with Bruce Chesser, executive pastor of FBC, Michael McClanahan, head of missions at FBC, a representative of another Baptist church in Texas which also helped out in Gummersbach, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the role of Faith Under Siege documentary, academic expert on church planting]

III.  How Church planting for Ukrainians in Europe is changing Christianity/culture in Germany more broadly (need much more reporting to pull this section off)

IV. Kicker likely circling back to Gummersbach

I found myself clapping at the end when Worth said Attora was “supervising repairs on a power line that would probably be blown up again tomorrow.” It was hilarious, pithy, and stuck at the heart of what the piece was about. The uncertain, elusive, and complex nature of the Aleppo conflict and the state of Syria after its fall. One could read it as a statement of futile endeavors. Or as a statement of daring hope? Structurally, though, I aspire to an ending similar to this that captures the essence of my piece and allows the reader to leave with an anchoring statement that summarizes the piece.  

 

Worth’s comparison: that Attora’s face looked like “Albert Camus’s might have if he lived a decade longer”, was reminiscent of McPhee’s comments on frame of reference. I don’t know what Albert Camus looks like, but I suppose the preceding details repay the borrowed vividness. McPhee tends to be a bit random and only tells you what he means at the end. I was confused for the longest time as to what he meant by frame of reference. As he talked about random moments where people weren’t getting his references because of different times, or when students used niche references, it all only comes together at the very end, and you’re like That’s what he’s doing. Maybe he’s breaking the rules of structure and loves to leave his readers confused for as long as possible. 

 

The TIME lede was a pretty novel style. It started straight in your face with the models being used before taking a step back to explain the context. I resonate with the piece of SiSi because I, too, am taking the approach of a single main character whose journey exemplifies a dynamic. From there, the work can be a commendatory and meaningful discussion on an aspect of society. The emphasis on really drawing on expert insights on a topic that you’re going into without knowledge is definitely a takeaway, as I conduct two expert interviews this week.

Lede: 

 

It was a Wednesday morning at 7 AM when Sam Albaid visited a house viewing as he hunted for an apartment in Berlin. When he got there, 70 people were already in line. He was standing in line waiting to get inside and a company representative asked to see his papers. He looked them over and then looked at him and asked, “You’re with the job center?” – referring to the government assistance letter guaranteeing coverage of a portion of rent for does making less than a certain amount. Sam nodded and the guy told him not to even try going in. “What, why,” Sam asked. “Is this legal?” “No, but that’s what’s gonna happen.”

 

Nutgraph: 

 

The search for stable housing is one of the most harrowing endeavors of every new Berliner. For refugees and migrants, that struggle is magnified. Despite Germany’s urgent need for workers, many newcomers find themselves caught in a circular trap: without a job, they can’t rent an apartment; without an apartment, they can’t get a job.

In Berlin, the housing crisis isn’t simply financial, it shapes entire lives. Refugees often spend months, sometimes years, in overcrowded shelters while waiting for a chance at permanent housing. Those who make it out face discrimination from landlords, sky-high deposits, and bureaucratic hurdles that make even basic rentals feel out of reach. On top of that, barriers to employment, like language certification, skill recognition, and temporary legal status, keep many from gaining the stability they need to move forward.

Still, there are signs of resilience. Programs like ARRIVO connect refugees with apprenticeships and job training, offering rare success stories amid a system that too often leaves people behind. Berlin’s housing market has become both a mirror and a test of Germany’s promise to integrate those who came seeking safety, and a future.

Note: This includes everything I have written so far for the final not just the lede and nutgraf. I posted everything to get a sense of the final structure, but it is not a fully completed draft. 

It was Christopher Tamm’s parents who first taught him not to trust the German government. Now, he is a member of the district council in Prignitz with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, the far-right group opposed to immigration and openly hostile towards the other parties in government. 

Tamm’s father grew up in east Germany under the Soviet Union and witnessed firsthand the German reunification process in the 1990s. He was angered by the new capitalistic government destroying industries tailored to a communist government, and politicians moving from the west to govern over a community to which they did not belong. 

Tamm’s mother grew up in Soviet Russia and was familiar with the communist lifestyle, especially the curtailments of freedoms imposed by the government. For her, though, the government never pledged more, whereas Tamm’s father had to “learn it the hard way” that the “promise land” for east Germans did not match the public expectation. “He saw with his own eyes that not everything gold is shiny,” Tamm said. 

The experiences of Tamm’s parents shaped his childhood, as they instilled their beliefs “not to believe too much in the government,” but rather to “believe more in yourself.” For Tamm, though, these thoughts ended up shaping political views for years to come, especially his disapproval around government policies aiding immigration. 

—

The AfD party was formed in 2013 as a single-issue party in response to global financial crisis policies that provided bailouts for struggling countries. Believing that Germany should have its own currency in place of the euro, the AfD promoted beliefs of nationalism that have intensified over the years. 

During the Syrian Civil War, the German government had opened its doors to refugees seeking asylum. Many families were driven from their homes, and the Assad government tortured many who did not support the authoritarian regime. Almost 300,000 Syrian refugees entered Germany in 2015, with an overall 46% migration increase from 2014. Amid this major immigration influx, the AfD shifted focus to anti-immigration politics and began dramatically increasing their party support. 

The message the AfD shared with supporters seemed oversimplified to some. Jasmine, a graduate student at Freie University in Berlin, described how the party made refugees scapegoats for a wide range of problems, as the party advertised that “if we stop the migrants coming in, then suddenly everything will be better.” And far too many, she believes, fell for this “trap.”

—

Tamm’s introduction to migrants came as a 13-year-old student in Bavaria where in 2015, he noticed a major influx of migrants in his classes.

Many Germans were not accustomed to seeing so many refugees in their neighborhoods. Tamm remembers many migrants at his school asking for money in the hallways and the cafeteria. 

“I wanted to give them something, but I didn’t have much money, so I thought maybe I can give them some food. I gave him my grapefruit and my lunch bread, and he didn’t want it. I didn’t understand why, so I gave it to him again, and then he just threw it on the floor and said in German, ‘money, money.’”

After arriving in Germany, migrants were given support from the government for housing, healthcare, financial assistance, and language courses. Most refugees were required to pass language tests before being allowed to work in Germany, the process for which takes several months to over a year. In the meanwhile, immigrant families relied on monthly government stipends, which were more generous than many other countries but still required frugality.

For Tamm, though, this interaction with refugees at his school left a lasting negative impression.

—

The wave of Syrian immigrants caused instability within German society. Reporting points towards Russia as an instigator for European refugee immigration. In 2015, [include coverage]

“There were so many Syrians forced into European borders, essentially by collusion between Damascus and Moscow,” one former Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State told me. “Putin was trying to use forced migration as a tool to further undermine political stability in Europe.”

“This pressure weakens left wing governments and strengthens the right wing populist movements.”

One consequence of growing right-wing support in Europe has been increased connection between far-right parties, including ties with the Trump administration. 

[Include Vance free speech criticisms]

Since then, Deputy leader of the AfD Beatrix von Storch and AfD Politician from western Germany Joachim Paul had a meeting in September with representatives of the national security council, the vice president’s office and the State Department. Most recently, German influencer and MAGA advisor Alex Bruesewitz visited Berlin in early November and spoke with AfD leaders about their shared goals. 

The spreading popularity of this movement was on full display following the assasination of social media influencer and far-right supporter Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, as protests and gatherings drew large crowds across the country and in Europe. 

Country leaders and officials have posted reactions to Kirk’s death, many of which are aligned with the far-right rhetoric. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán described the left as “hate mongering,” Santiago Abascal, a Congressman in Spain, wrote that the left “wanted this assasination,” and Germany’s Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD party, posted on X that “liberal’s hate the left’s way of life.” Tamm is also tagged in an Instagram post by another AfD politician at a remembrance ceremony for Kirk and Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian who was fatally stabbed in North Carolina. 

“I am totally not surprised that a party like the AfD that’s still on its way up trying to take power, is going to try to learn everything it can from ideologues and activists in other countries who are singing from the same sheet of music,” the former member of the Department of State said.

—

After finishing school, Tamm planned to study law in Vienna. He arrived in 2020 when strict covid rules put the country in lock down. Tamm never made it to law school, instead he moved to Russia because didn’t want to live in a country that would prevent him from “going out [to] parties and having fun.”

Tamm moved back to Germany after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. He wanted to make sure that if a war spilled into Germany he would be able to serve, and he joined the army. In his company, Tamm remembered over half of the soldiers were from Afghan or Syrian or Moroccan descent. Though many were proud to have been raised in Germany and held passports, Tamm would not consider them German. 

“No matter how much you assimilate in a country, you cannot be 100% from that country.” Tamm believes that those of different ethnic backgrounds should not be classified as German, including children of immigrants in the second or third generations. 

Tamm distinguishes himself from people who have German passports but are not “real Germans.” 

Tamm was discharged from service after being deemed a security threat when the administration found out he had been living in Russia for more than half of the past five years. He was upset that he was dismissed while those from immigrant families were allowed to stay in the army, Tamm said. 

—

Connections between Germany and Russia are of high concern for many in the government, especially with regard to the military. Last week, members of the Bundestag accused AfD politicians of leaking sensitive defense information to Russian intelligence. Plans for AfD officials to visit Russia has also sparked anger from other parties in government. 

The AfD’s position towards the Russia-Ukraine war is also mixed. Martin Kohler, creator of the youth wing for the AfD, told me that, “Maybe it’s not the official position of my party, but … my opinion is that Zelensky is a bad president. There are many rumors about corruption.”

Many former state department officials have told me that Germany is “soft on Russia.” When asked about the Ukraine war, Tamm said that “we have to clear the problems in our country, and then we can talk what’s happening in the world.”

This idea of putting one’s own country “first” is not a new concept. [Discuss Trump administration]

—

Leaving the army sparked Tamm’s decision to enter the field of politics and was attracted to the anti-immigration sentiments from the AfD. 

In 2023 when Tamm joined the AfD, party support was around 20% nationally, and currently support has risen to 25% nationally, with more popularity in east German communities formerly part of the Soviet Union. 

Tamm resonates with the key party messaging, including the idea of “remigration,” or the idea that non-ethnic German migrants should be deported to their countries of origin. He feels that immigrants, specifically Muslim practicing immigrants, do not belong in German society.

“If you’re somebody who wants to wear a hijab, you don’t fit into Germany.”

Though Germany does not recognize any specific religion, many women are discriminated against for wearing a hijab, and certain states have banned women from wearing hijabs in government, public education, and clerical positions. While Tamm believes a hijab is a symbol of female suppression, many Muslim women disagree. 

Tamm said that immigrants should migrate to countries in which they are most culturally similar, and that leaving one’s country due to hardship was “weak.” For many Syrians, however, Germany offered the greatest promise for opportunity and leaving Syria was not a matter of choice, as they faced torture. 

To recruit others to the AfD cause, Tamm has taken to posting images and short-form videos on social media. He sports a coiffed short cut with a sharp side part and a short mustache and beard. Along with several “remigration” posts and a MAGA hat selfie on his Instagram, Tamm targets LGBT+ groups. One video, which gained over a million views, clips of people saying in German “I’m gay,” “I’m lesbian,” “I’m transgender,” “I’m actually a fox,” is followed by his statement made driving a car “I’m m/w/g — male, white, German.”

Though LGBT+ sentiment is mixed within the AfD, and party co-leader Alice Weidel is openly lesbian, anti-immigration messages are uniform throughout. Influencers like Tamm, who is only 24, have helped generate a new wave of AfD support primarily from young, white German men. 

Jasmine noticed her younger brother has been pulled to the political right by his social media feed. Her brother, a 17-year-old who now lives in the US but was born in Germany, has been telling her that more deportations are needed and immigrants are going to “replace us in the culture.” She believes that social media algorithms can “indoctrinate you into [an] anti-migrant racist.”

Tamm approaches his social media posts like a “business” with his videos making fun of left wing beliefs. “If you want to be successful, you have to do something that nobody is doing, and you have to find a niche that isn’t occupied. I found a niche with my provocative videos.” 

—

As support rises, may warn against the troubles of far-right politics

[Recent warning from German president about antisemetic worries, and maybe a ban following youth group ban]

[Anti semitic chat leaks, similar to those in the US] 

Today, Tamm serves as a member of the district council in Prignitz with the AfD, and hopes to continue his career in politics. He was recently quoted in a New York Times article at an AfD protest, telling a supporter who had his arm in a Hitler salute to “keep your arm up like this a little bit longer.” 

At first glance, a youth group in Almaz Church looks like any other gathering of young evangelicals: teenagers in flannels and hoodies lounging around a table, snacking on chips and discussing how God has touched them in their lives. Almaz’s services, too, have a familiar bent, with off-key worship music and hands raised in swaying prayer. 

But these are not ordinary evangelicals. Almaz is a Baptist congregation in Germany, a country where the denomination accounts for only about 1 percent of the population. The congregants are Ukrainians who have fled the full-scale invasion, and in youth group, the teens and 20-somethings swap stories of this relative or that cousin had been saved from a drone or a missile strike thanks to God’s hand.

Almaz is located in Gummersbach, an unassuming town of 50,000 in Western Germany home to a steadily growing population of Ukrainian refugees (about 3,000, I was told repeatedly on a recent visit, although the town has not released official census figures since 2022). Since the full-scale invasion, the church, and other evangelical Ukrainian congregations in the United States and Germany, have seen a significant influx of young people into the faith. 

The reasons for this religious transmission vary. For a refugee family, evangelical churches like Almaz are sometimes the only Ukrainian cultural centers available. There’s also some amount of lingering resentment with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, perceived to be overly staid and reliant on tradition. But above all else, the teachings of Baptism and other evangelical denominations have legitimate resonance for young Ukrainians trying to make sense of the war and their displacement.

“It was helpful for me to believe that God [could] control a situation in my country, in my city, my family, in my church, in my life,” said Martin Skopych, one of Almaz’s youth group leaders and the son of the church’s pastor.

On October 31st, Nazira Khairzad, a 21-year old woman from Afghanistan, turned to her older sister, Nazima, as they waited to board a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Palma de Mallorca, Spain. “What about if the police catch me and send me back to Italy?” Nazima recalls her sister saying. 

They were the only Afghans in sight. Around them, Spaniards on their way home crowded the gate. Nazima and Nazira were three days away from the Ultra-Trail du Mont-blanc, a technical 26-kilometer race through the Serra de Tramuntana mountains of Mallorca. Nazira’s legs still ached from the Frankfurt marathon, which she’d run a week before, finishing with a positive split. If all went as planned, the rapid turnaround would be worth it. The Ultra-Trail du Mont-blanc would bring staggering views of the Mediterranean–and more opportunities to race abroad. One hiccup threatened to upend these dreams. In Germany, Nazira is a non-resident. For her, international travel is illegal. 

“It’s legal,” Nazima recalls telling her sister. “You already have the documents.” When Nazira went through security in Frankfurt am Main, she showed the guard the refugee travel document she obtained in Italy, where she obtained asylum in 2021. Not her German ID with its red slash across the biometric page. Nazima, who has German asylum, worries about Nazira’s ability to stay in Germany, where her whole family now lives. But as her sister–marathoner, goalkeeper, and woman caught in a web of bureaucratic contradictions–approached the gate agent, Nazima kept her concerns quiet.

 

“I have duldung,” Nazira told me. “It’s worse than deport,” her older sister, Nazima, added. At a café along the Main River, the three of us peered over Nazira’s ID. “Exclusion of deportation (Duldung),” it read in German. And under that: “No residence permit! The holder is required to leave the country!”

Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany hold ID’s that look like Nazira’s. Duldung, which denies an asylum seeker residency but protects her from deportation, is one way Germany has tried to accommodate–without too warm a welcome–the staggering amount of refugees entering the country. The number of asylum seekers in Germany has skyrocketed in recent years, multiplying seven-fold from 2007 to 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Germany has stamped approvals at an impressive clip. As of late 2024, there were 2,706,320 refugees with an approved asylum case, just 170,970, with rejections. 

Nazira and 177,609 others hang in a peculiar in-between, their cases denied, but their presence sanctioned under “duldung,” or “toleration.” Her deportation order, by duldung standards, is on hold. But as anti-immigrant sentiment swells in Germany, Nazira is skeptical of this temporary protection. “They can send police and they can send me back to Italy,” she told me. “It happened for some people I know.” 

10 years ago, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to Syrian refugees, sparking the genesis of the nation’s ‘Wilkommenskulture’ — welcoming culture. After Assad’s fall, the rise of the center-right, and escalating anti-immigrant sentiment, Germany’s politicians are increasingly divided on the topic of Syrian repatriation.

Everything happened all at once. 

Hesham Moamadani’s German passport, freshly minted just a few days prior, was glistening on his desk. Moamadani was anxiously gnawing on his fingernails. Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator, had fallen. Moamadani once believed the day would never arrive. And yet it did, the news landing ever so mundanely on his screen as if making a mockery out of the beads of sweat dripping from his forehead, never mind Berlin’s subzero December freeze. 

Moamadani was one of nearly 300,000 people who were granted German citizenship in 2024, a record for the nation. A large number of Syrian refugees who arrived during former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s border openings in 2015-2016 became eligible for naturalization that year; Moamadani was one of them. What most didn’t anticipate was that the dreaded Assad regime would collapse abruptly, mobilizing a stream of disputes within the German government on whether or not to repatriate Syrian nationals back to their home country. Particularly inflamed by the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment throughout the West, German politicians remain divided. And Syrians, many of whom have lived in Germany for years but are yet to receive their citizenship, remain in judicial limbo.

“Hardly anyone can live here with dignity,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in a statement to German news network Deutsche Welle after a visit to Damascus, Syria, earlier this month. During a meeting in parliament, Wadephul allegedly made a remark that said today’s “Syria looked worse than postwar Germany.” A member of Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Wadephul’s statements drew the attention of high-ranking German politicians and drew scrutiny from more conservative party counterparts. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose pointed remarks appeared to indirectly address Wadephul, noted that “there is no longer any reason for [Syrian] asylum in Germany, and therefore, [Germany] can begin repatriations.” 

The rightward shift in mainstream German politics reflects a larger wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that has taken hold of the country in recent years. While for now, voluntary repatriation and deportations of Syrians with criminal records remain at the forefront of the CDU’s policies, only 0.1% of Germany’s Syrians have voluntarily returned to their homeland a year after Assad’s fall. Those like Moamadani know that they are lucky. But for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians in more precarious circumstances — such as those with temporary residence permits or a subsidiary protection status — small political shifts can feel life-altering.