Under review – family reunification has been temporarily stopped in 1000 cases

According to the Ministry of the Interior, the reason for the checks is the suspicion of corruption among the Syrian authorities and doubts as to whether birth certificates from Syria are correct. Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner said at the door of the Council of Ministers of the Interior in Luxembourg that he had announced a few weeks ago “that there should be a kind of grid square for the checks, because it has simply been discovered that the system is being used in some Embassies, documents were also forged. Then it is the task of the authorities, and also the task of the police, to monitor this more closely.”

“Make sure there are no counterfeits”
You must ensure and guarantee that there are no counterfeits at the embassies, “but also among those who have already entered the country.” This is necessary to keep a system credible and functioning.”

In a written statement, the Ministry of the Interior referred to the statements of Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), who had already announced tightened measures for family reunification on May 5. DNA tests should be used increasingly to “prove the relationship absolutely reliably,” the Interior Ministry said. This is necessary “to identify genuine but incorrect documents,” citing “suspicions of corruption among local Syrian authorities.” It must be ensured that “no one comes to Austria with forged documents”.

This also applies to people who have received a positive probability forecast from the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum. Before the agency sends such a positive probabilistic forecast to the representative authority, “all doubts about the identity and the alleged family relationship must be dispelled,” the Interior Ministry justified the new checks “on the basis of the new criteria.”

Criticism from asylum NGOs
The spokesman for the Asylum Coordination Association, Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz, criticized on Ö1 radio that Austrian embassies have canceled at least 100 already fixed appointments for issuing visas, and that 400 women and children have been affected. According to the asylum coordination, there are approximately ten embassies where applications from Syria are processed. “If there are doubts in an individual case, the authority will of course be instructed to check again more carefully. But since the cancellation of appointments is happening on a large scale, it appears that it is more politically motivated not to allow access to the National Council elections here,” the spokesperson said. According to NGO representatives, individual families had to cancel already booked flights to Austria.

Responding to this accusation, Karner emphasized in Luxembourg that there is therefore a note for those affected “not to book flights too early, but only when legal residence is possible”. Karner also pointed out that it is important to prevent that illegal migration in general occurs. That is why “a functioning asylum and migration pact in Europe, with functioning external borders” is needed.

UNHCR: “Months of delay”
Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called for family reunification of refugees not to be made more difficult. As a result of the tests, procedures would be “delayed for months and families – often with small children – would remain separated for even longer,” the High Commission said in a press release. In the worst case, this could mean “that family members would once again have to make dangerous journeys in crisis areas to the nearest Austrian embassy or that other families would lose airline tickets they had already booked.” From the UNHCR’s point of view, DNA tests to prove a relationship should only be ordered as a last measure if there are serious doubts or signs of fraudulent intent.

ÖVP Secretary General Christian Stocker presented himself somewhat in election campaign mode on Thursday: “While (FPÖ leader Herbert, note) Kickl only talks again, our Chancellor Karl Nehammer acts,” he said in a broadcast on Thursday. Kickl just talks ‘stubbornly’, but ‘has achieved nothing himself’. “His record as Home Secretary is disastrous; apart from symbolic politics, no real and lasting measures have been taken in migration policy.” And: “We will tighten the asylum brake even further, because you can see that the asylum brake is working!”