{"id":458,"date":"2025-11-03T14:35:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/?p=458"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:43:21","slug":"pitch-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/pitch-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a cafe in Frankfurt on October 12th, 2025, Nazira Khairzad, former goalkeeper for Afghanistan\u2019s national women\u2019s team, put her provisional ID on the table and flipped to the portrait page. A red line ran diagonal through her biometric data. Across the top, \u201cExclusion of deportation (Duldung)\u201d was written in German, and under that, \u201cNo residence permit! The holder is required to leave the country!\u201d Since joining her sister in Germany in 2023, Nazira has been searching for a way to stay. Under \u201cduldung\u201d or \u201ctoleration,\u201d a status unique to Germany, her deportation order is on hold\u2013but only for as long as the German government deems it necessary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not my choice to come to Germany,\u201d Nazira had told me a week earlier, calling from her home in Neuberg, where she lives with her parents and two brothers. When the Taliban took over her country in August of 2021, she fled to Italy, risking persecution as a female athlete. When her sister, Nazima Khairzad, who made a name for herself summiting mountains and dominating ski challenges, was hospitalized with a brain tumor in Frankfurt, Nazira packed up her life again. Today, Nazira is the only one in her family without asylum in Germany. \u201cThey can send police and they can send me back to Italy,\u201d she told me. \u201cIt happened for some people I know.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I plan to write a 2500-word feature story following Nazira\u2019s relentless efforts to play sports professionally, learn German, and adjust to a new culture, despite her precarious legal status. Nazira\u2019s path fits into a broader narrative about the German government\u2019s recent attempts to block the arrival and integration of Afghans. After the German government <\/span>set up<\/span><\/a> a program to admit vulnerable Afghans in late 2022, Chancellor Merz has reversed his country\u2019s course, putting Afghan men convicted of crimes on flights back to Afghanistan and <\/span>announcing plans<\/span><\/a> to deport many others. Meanwhile, Merz has offered Taliban officials consular <\/span>positions<\/span><\/a>, threatening to legitimize the very regime that forced Nazira to flee.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This piece, which I am still reporting, will foreground Nazira\u2019s search for stability in Germany against the broader context of the country\u2019s mounting rejection of Afghans. I will speak to asylum lawyers in Germany, scholars familiar with the specifics of <\/span>duldung<\/span><\/i>, and people relevant to Nazira\u2019s story, including her lawyer, sister, parents, and teammates on FC Mittelbuchen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a cafe in Frankfurt on October 12th, 2025, Nazira Khairzad, former goalkeeper for Afghanistan\u2019s national women\u2019s team, put her provisional ID on the table and flipped to the portrait page. A red line ran diagonal through her biometric data. Across the top, \u201cExclusion of deportation (Duldung)\u201d was written in German, and under that, \u201cNo<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4790,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}