Ask HN: How Can I leave Syria now and get asylum in Europe (Germany)
Guys,
I am in Syria(specifically in Damascus). Seems war is rolling out. Most of the people are moving to border regions but I cant and I am a programmer worked as a remote dev for an Australian startup. But I am not sure how long I will be able to work living in Syria. I want move to Europe specially in Germany as the startup scene is booming in Berlin. So can you guys give me suggestion of legal way to move in Germany as an asylum and will I be able to work if I can move. I went through google but couldn't find much information. And I will be happy to have contact with startups that are hiring dev. I have couple of years backend development experience with Python(Django),LAMP,Node.js and some unix skill. Thanks in advance.
227 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 311 ms ] threadMy knowledge is both limited, 12+ years outdated, and restricted to the UK, but here is my tuppence-worth anyway:
1. It is both a legal and a bureaucratic process. 2. Apply for asylum at the first possible opportunity. At the border crossing-point or airport, if possible. 3. Don't lie. 4. Be prepared with documentary evidence to back up any statements that you are going to make. 5. If possible, have documentary evidence that you are facing persecution, or that your life is in danger. (Sounds silly in the current situation, I know, but anyway...) 6. Make sure that a friendly party (or your lawyer) has a copy of these documents.
It might be easier, if the danger looks like it is going to be temporary, to reach out and try to get somebody to "host" you, and go on a visitor's visa.
If you do have relatives in Germany, that might be a route to explore. I heard something in the news, that this may be an option.
For working though, that's going to be a tough one. Reading the Wikipedia article (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitserlaubnis) right, it states that: "Asylbewerber dürfen für die ersten 12 Monate überhaupt nicht arbeiten (§ 61 Abs. 2 AsylVfG), anschließend gilt ein nachrangiger Arbeitsmarktzugang nach der BeschVerfV (siehe oben)." Which translates to: people seeking asylum must not take up any employment for the first 12 month.
As well as "Asylberechtigte, Konventionsflüchtlinge (§ 25 Abs. 1 und 2 AufenthG) sowie Ausländer mit einer Niederlassungserlaubnis (§ 9 Abs. 1 AufenthG) haben nach dem Aufenthaltsgesetz ein Recht auf Erwerbstätigkeit.", which transaltes to: people granted asylum (and some others) holding a residence permit, are allowed to work.
That's both ends of the spectrum, so there may be some middle ground after 12 month. I'm not lawyer though!
Finally, I think, maybe the folks from PRO Asyl may be the right ones to ask. See: http://www.proasyl.de/en/contact/
PS: regarding hosting, from my exprience it's a somewhat lengthy progress, depending on the regonal administration. Your host will have to provide financial standing for your stay (requirements differ for the duration of your stay), with that he or she has to send that document certifying the financial standing as well as a signed invitation to you (the original), with which you have to go to the german emabassy in your country and apply for a temporary visa.
Also, you have the problem that you likely won't even be able to enter the European Union, except if you smuggle yourself via the Turkish-Greek border - but then again, the Germans simply fly you to Greece because this is the place where you entered the European Union technically.
If you smuggle yourself via the Turkish-Greek border then you are stuck in the wonderful country of Greece forever basically. High unemployment, laws that are really unfriendly to asylum seekers (less than 2% acceptance rate) and the nazist party (facepalm..) has risen from obscurity to 5% in the latest elections, to 15% in the polls... So less than ideal environment for a programmer :)
Too many people have gone that route and now are stuck here because of that Dublin 2 convention that will return asylum seekers to the country that they entered the EU in the first place... So do whatever you can to avoid Greece as an entry country to EU. Try Sweden, you would love it except for the weather :)
You might try a "blue card", if you can get a good salary. But I am not sure how easy that is from Syria at the moment...
Also keep in mind that islamophobia in Germany is rising across the board. And no, my fellow Germans generally make no distinction between copts, syrian christians or muslims.
First of all, make sure that you take a direct flight to Germany. If you enter any other European Country before, you have to get asylum there.
Second and maybe more important. If you try to get an asylum in Germany, you are not allowed to work for the first year. It's crazy and doesn't make any sense.
If you still want to get here. And it's a great city. Here is the Email address of the refugee help in Berlin: buero@fluechtlingsrat-berlin.de
Got 10 kids? Not a problem. Bring them along, the Swedes will gladly pay for everything without questions. They'll pay you so much money each month for all your kids and to help you along that you'll be making more than most middle-management here. And if you do encounter a Swede that questions why you wanted asylum in Sweden instead of another arab country with similar culture and language, just call him a racist. That'll shut him up.
Want some Swedish pussy on the side? Swedish girls are the most naive, PC-indoctrinated females on this side of the solar system. They'll sleep with you in a heartbeat. Feel like slapping her around to teach her her place? That's ok, she'll forgive you and excuse the behaviour with "that's his culture and we must be understanding of other Swedes' cultures". All schoolkids are taught that all immigrants, each and every one, is just as valuable and productive member of Swedish society as even the most hard-working Swede.
sigh
A really helpful english-speaking source for any expat information on Germany is the http://toytowngermany.com/forum forum, especially the lengthy thread on visas and work permits: http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4675...
Here's the thread for the Blue Card scheme: http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2673...
Hope that helps a tiny bit and good luck!
Edit: Another link to official information on the Blue card: http://www.bluecard-eu.de/eu-blue-card-germany/
Good luck and stay safe.
anyhow forward me your CV and email and let's connect, tech-wise we are recruiting node.js - backend dev if this could help. here's my contact: swissnamir@gmail.com
Good luck to you. I (white Australian) visited Syria a few years ago. Every piece of news I hear now from Syria just saddens me.
However... Sweden also spend lots of money on a virtual embassy in second life. Read more about it here: http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Reading/Second-Life/
Maybe you can do a think of virtually applying for visa in sweden and write a pressrelease and push it on mynewsdesk.com. Startup community is also big in Sweden and we need skilled developers (Im swedish).
Carl Bildt,Foreign Minister of Sweden since 2006 (https://twitter.com/carlbildt) is very active on twitter and in my guess most likely to respond to a virtual request for visa by twitter and second life. This is a long shot but something you can try by your computer.
When you get visa in any EU country it is easy to move to germany and travel over boarders within EU.
I theory, I believe you may just come to Europe and if you state at the border that you seek an asylum they can't refuse you ( according to international laws, until your asylum is decided on ) and then take it from there.
Turkey is the closest country you don't need a visa for.
I will make an update but in any case don't double-check everything yourself, those are few things I vaguely remember from school.
As someone else mentioned in Germany as asylum seeker you arent allowed to work. You can come to Sweden and seek asylum and you'd be allowed to work, and when you do sign a contract then you can get a permit to stay and cancel the asylum request. PM me and Ill give you names of good companies that are on the lookout to hire.
As others said, to be able to apply for asylum in EU country X, you have to first set foot in that country X and not in another one, so, go to Turkey or Israel and then fly to Sweden from there.
Sweden is also more flexible, its a country where they look out for the best interest of you as a human (mostly), so if you come to Sweden and continue working for Australian company - it is enough to get a work permit, all you have to do is prove that you earn more than minimum amount, I believe around 1500usd and pay taxes, to be accepted.
As a war refugee my self, I urge you strongly to leave Syria now, for the love of god no matter the price, buy those tickets and get the hell out of there and far away as possible, Sweden, Canada, Australia. (Not Germany, France, Italy, USA, Turkey they all suck.)
Your life is all you got, dont waste it on that war. Take with your closest family if you can.
However, now I am reminded that Syria has banned all males 18-42 from leaving the country. So, it isnt easy, you basically have to escape through smuggle-lines/unguarded border.
EDIT: If I may speculate, the safest option would be to get to the coast and take a ship to anywhere that isnt Syria.
Another EDIT: Try to go to the kurdish areas, they will probably let you go to Turkey or Iraq.
Also I dont believe it is very common with burkas in Syria.
If you leave for Sweden make sure you will seek these places that have a lot of Syrians, like the mentioned Södertälje. It will be much easier there to get help in all occurring matters. God knows, it is hard enough to flee your home country, so you should pick the easiest and most frictionless option possible.
Also Sweden is the poor neighbor of Norway and Denmark ;-)
As a German citizen I really hate to say this, but recently there has been a hitch in the media where there were protests by neonazi groups in front of asylum homes. Sadly, there are still people who see asylum seekers as potential job-stealers, showing them nothing but hate and would like to throw them all out, regardless of their skills.
This is absolutely not the general opinion in Germany, but at least some people think so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Has_Only_Got_One_Ball
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria#Religion
Yes, although I'm sure there is a good deal of overlap
> Given that about 75% of the Syrian population are muslim [1], it's exactly the sort of thing the EDL would make a fuss about.
The EDL say they are an anti-Muslim organisation, but I imagine most of their supporters are motivated by a more generalised xenophobia, so would dislike Syrians of all religions and none.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_of_Rostock-Lichtenhagen
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_of_Hoyerswerda
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solingen_arson_attack_of_1993
Sorry, both sources are in German. Maybe Google translate will help a little?
[1] http://www.mut-gegen-rechte-gewalt.de/news/chronik-der-gewal...
[2] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todesopfer_rechtsextremer_Gewal...
I'd say that Germany is still pretty safe, but I admit that there are places that even I as a German feel uneasy about - mostly the rural areas in former East German states.
Also the way asylum seekers are treated here seems pretty bad. But that refers to the way the government handles the issue, not to the attitude of the general population.
Having an arab/turkish name can disqualify you for most job interviews, regardless of background or skill. There was a bestseller in the past years where someone wanted to rationalize social inequality towards especially turks with the basic idea that turks in Germany are genetically inferior in intelligence and will "dilute" our gene pool because of their high reproductive rates...
The only saving grace in that incidence was that most Germans pushed back heavily, at least at that time.
Sarrazin didn't "raise important issues". He made superficially rational arguments which have in many cases been disproven completely. However these rationalisations were then echoed by racist beliefs buried in society and the discussion became one of racism versus civil rights, ending totally unproductively.
The main "issue" was that "turks are genetically inferior in intelligence so we need not try and give them better chances in education or employment". He didn't even propose to deport two million fellow citizens, but others did that for him in response...
I think the persistent poor performance of certain large immigrant groups certainly is an important issue. It is also true that part of this underperformance may have a genetic cause.
http://m.nber.org//digest/sep03/w9873.html
"It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with Africa-American names was much smaller."
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/11/2...
"Adida found that in at least two sectors, a Muslim candidate is around 2.5 times less likely to get a job interview than a Christian one, with all else being equal. These results were backed up by a large survey, which showed that among second-generation Senegalese immigrants, Muslim households earn far less than Christian equivalents."
http://writers.unconsciousbias.org/2009/09/best-man-for-the-...
"They found that resumes with Arab/Muslim names were 10% less likely to be called in for an interview and that IAT scores indicating bias against Arabs directly correlated with the likelihood of a callback.
Rooth then followed up with many of the employers who had unwittingly taken part in the first half of the study. The employers filled out three different explicit measures of bias against Arabs and Muslims and then took an IAT that paired Swedish and Arab names with work- associated words such as “lazy”, “slow”, “efficient” and “hard-working”. Not surprisingly, “the IAT scores of the 193 recruiters participating in this study show that a very clear majority associate words signaling negative productivity… with belonging to the Arab/Muslim minority”."
Unless you are Arab/Muslim, you are very embedded into the Arab/Muslim community/culture, or you are well-versed in the stats on the subject, it really seems like you're speaking from a place of ignorance.
> It is also true that part of this underperformance may have a genetic cause.
It's highly unlikely that such a general descriptor as "job performance" across all industries would have anything to do with genetic factors. The fact that you even bother to mention it makes me think that you're putting more stock in the idea than it is worth.
If you say a "part of this underperformance has a genetic cause" that can't be falsified. How could it?
But: Can you show that genetics has a practical relevance in HR and social policy decisions? Can it have any? Should it have any?
We can see and show factors of discrimination that are definitely not genetic and definitely not a general genetic disadvantage between Germans and other "races" (I shudder at these words...), and that makes it really hard to believe we shouldn't try and ameliorate those because "Hey, it's all genetics anyway!"
So far no one has been able to show me any practical consequence from the theoretical allegations of intellectual performance being genetic.
Though, as a white man, my experience about behaviour of natives might lack first hand perspective of how it looks for black people.
Southern Germans however, as you say, tend to be quite conservative. I'm glad for you that you like it here. But as I see it, the most important reason keeping the south from being as unfriendly to foreigners as the east, is its relative economic success and therefore less need for scapegoats.
As a German, I really have to agree. Don't get trapped here. It's not a very friendly country, especially compared to the scandinavian ones. Xenophobia is also an issue. If I was seeking asylum in order to start a new life somewhere, I'd much rather try for London or Stockholm. Asylum in Germany is more like being in protective custody. Do not do this.
Germany is a bad choice for asylum - I mean, it's great that Germany has a robust system for asylum, because there are people who genuinely need it and benefit from it, but if you're looking for a place to work, this is probably the wrong mechanism.
My sister-in-law (originally from Kenya) used to live in Germany for many years, and found the abuse she received there demoralizing and (ultimately) intolerable. She now lives here in the UK, and is much, much, much happier as a result, although I think the psychological scars from her time in Germany will remain with her for the rest of her life.
You can get by with just English, although that is not too common, be prepared to study Swedish, the more you learn Swedish and learn the mentality the easier it will be for you.
i dont know if this is true or not, but i heard you should avoid passing through Greece. Best option is to make your way to Turkey, and from there straight to Western Europe. And if possible, do not attempt to go alone, but travel with a group of people. You'll encounter a lot of people who will try to take advantage of you.
Another option, if you belong to a minority: Stick with your people, seek their centers and get their advise. (This may sound kind of racist. But Syria has a lot of minorities, each with a different approach to this situation. Don't be fooled, it is War, so everybody will rather help their people first. I don't make the rules...)
Edit: more info: http://www.migri.fi/asylum_in_finland
There's also been talk of having the Startup Life program (http://startuplife.fi/) take interns from abroad and get them to work for Finnish startups. That may be a good stepping stone for you. I'll ask around about it and get back to you via Twitter.
I would love to intern at a Finnish startup. I'll keep my eyes on twitter :)
(I won't go into the politics of the UKBA, but suffice to say that the people who are "customer facing" are the ones who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near vulnerable people - and removing them is politically impossible.)
Sweden sounds like a much better bet.
Let me throw Estonia into the bucket, and drop the asylum. Its easy to found a company there. You don't pay corporate tax, only a flat income tax, and you have access to EU market.
Are you Syrian? It may be easier to get to a country that does not require you having a visa then you decide on what to do later. As a dev, you can work remotely and earn money.
Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Syrian_ci....
Best of luck man.
If you tell them you're an experimented software engineer, it may be much faster to get a work visa than asylum. Ask for this work visa to each embassy in Damascus.
Also, Morrocoan cities are growing like crazy. There may be some business to do there and they may give visas more easily.
But you should check up on that first though :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Syrian_c...