ISTANBUL — A group of young men sit outside of a Burger King in Istanbul, and their conversation is about leaving Turkey. “Germany is my goal,” says one.
The man introduces himself as Muhittin as he rolls a cigarette. It is a hot late-summer afternoon, but the alley where they are sitting is narrow and the houses are tall, so the sidewalk is cool and shady. Muhittin talks about his visa application being rejected by the German consulate. Without a visa, he cannot enter the country, and without the entry visa he cannot apply for asylum.
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“Then I’ll just enter Germany illegally,” says Muhittin. Two of his friends jump in: “We’re coming with you!”.
The conversation includes calculations of how long they will have to save up before they have enough to pay the smuggler. With the current exchange rate, it’s more than $5,000 per person, with no guarantee of actually getting to Germany.
Muhittin tells stories of acquaintances who were caught at the border, beaten and sent back. He doesn’t find that a deterrent. “In Germany, I can live in peace and get welfare,” he says, pointing to his cell phone. He’s been told that by multiple sources on Turkish TV and social media.
Some online channels report on the life of Turkish asylum seekers in Germany. They claim illegal immigrants receive more than 400 euros per month from the state and that there is a shortage of skilled workers in certain areas.
But more details can be found on social media, especially on TikTok.
There are several Turks living in Germany who have become would-be “asylum influencers,” explaining to social media audiences back in Turkey everything a prospective migrant should know: citizen’s allowance, working permits, public transport ticket costs, child support and dual citizenship. Some of the clips have hundreds of thousands of views.
Friends, get a visa
Armii.tv’s Tiktok channel is particularly successful. One of the clips, which has collected three million views, is called “Buying a car by collecting empty bottles.” Step by step, a Turkish TikToker explains to the viewer the system for collecting bottle deposit fees, which does not exist in Turkey.
Other videos are about rent assistance, getting free furniture from your rich neighbors’ trash, the three words you need to know to master any conversation with Germans: “Yes, all clear, exactly.” But now all influencers, including the TikToker from Armii.tv, are warning their audience: “Friends, don’t enter the country illegally, get a visa.”
That is precisely where the problem lies. For many months, visa rejections have become far more common than they used to be. Consular sources say that the reason behind that is that the number of visa applications has increased massively and that the applications are being filled out with less and less care. Still, many Turks who want to emigrate are left with no choice but to enter the country illegally.
According to the Federal Police’s report on human trafficking, last year there were more than 35,000 illegal border crossings by people from Turkey. According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), the number of asylum seekers from last year was just over 61,000. In the first eight months of this year, there were more than 20,000 requests.
“It used to be easy to go to Europe”
It’s unclear how many of those who entered the country actually had a visa. It is also not certain how many of them entered from Turkey but are not of Turkish background: they could be, for example, recently naturalized Turkish citizens of Syrian origin. The German consulate’s Instagram account warns that there are currently no chances to get an asylum visa, and it’s interesting that the message is not in Turkish, as you would expect, but in Arabic.
Many Turks believe that Germany is intentionally making the visa application process harder in a hope to slow down the flow of migrants coming from Turkey. “It used to be easy to go to Europe,” complains a young man from Istanbul, sitting on the shore of the Marmara Sea on a Sunday afternoon.
Bridge to Europe
These men believe the reason why it has become so hard to get a visa has to do with Germany’s soft migration policies of the past. “They have taken in too many refugees, some of them may be terrorists from Syria or Afghanistan,” says one of the men as he spits the shell of a sunflower seed into the grass and curses. “Sons of bitches, they are using our country as a bridge to Europe, and that’s why we are being blocked from entering.”
The two know that they just have to make it across the border to be able to stay in Germany. “We know a lot of people who have left and none of them has had to come back,” says the other man, who also wishes to remain anonymous.
Last year, only around 13% of the applicants were granted a visa
Turkey is a so-called “safe third country”, and that’s why many who apply for asylum get rejected: Last year, only around 13% of the applicants were granted a visa. In theory, more than 17,000 people who reached Germany from Turkey would have to go back, with several bilateral agreements between Turkey and Germany regulating the return. In practice, however, the majority of them manage to stay in Germany for years, with long appeals procedures slow down the process. But the bureaucracy may not be the only reason.
Some German political leaders are convinced that the Turkish government is actively trying not to take them back. Turkish government members have been denying this for months. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz set up a research group about this a year ago, but there have been no discoveries since then. “We are respecting our agreements and Turkey is cooperative,” says Oğuz Üçüncü, a member of Erdoğan’s AKP party.
Deportation risks
Those who have made it to Germany benefit from the political standstill. One of them is Ferit: a Kurdish musician who has been seeking asylum for a few months. He came with a short-term visa for a musical performance at a cultural organization. “I want to study here and only return to Turkey to visit my family,” he says.
Since the requirements for a student visa were too hard to match, he decided to seek asylum. He found housing in a private home, enrolled in a German course, and now receives 413 euros per month. Ferit has recently started helping out in a fellow countryman’s kebab shop, all in accordance with a new law from the federal government.
Ferit does not face any proven political persecution back in his native Turkey, and therefore knows that his asylum application does not have a big chance of success. But he also knows that this doesn’t mean he will actually have to leave Germany.
Dump your passport
Statistically speaking, he is right: in the first six months, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, only 913 people were forced to go back to Turkey. The number of deportations is increasing, but it’s a very small number if compared to the many people who should legally be obliged to leave the country but manage to stay anyway.
Repatriation assistance probably seems like too small an incentive
“You have to throw your passport away, then nobody can deport you,” says Ferit. He learned this from his housemates. They also told him about the federal government’s “help for voluntary return” program, which grants up to several thousand euros to those who wish to go back to their home country: the media promotes with headlines such as: “2,000 euros for returnees who have fled to Germany.”
The success of this program is debatable: the website states that due to the great volume of applications the current waiting time is up to 12 weeks, but it’s unclear how many of the recipients move back to their country of origin on a permanent basis.
“I don’t know anyone who wants to apply to that,” says Ferit. Repatriation assistance probably seems like too small an incentive. Again, the numbers prove him right: According to BAMF, 1,600 people from Turkey received the voluntary return grant in 2023, only a small fraction of those who should be legally required to leave Germany.
Apparently, the hardships these migrants had to endure to enter the country and the dream of a life in Deutschland are worth much more than a few thousand euros to cover the return trip.
