Yosif and Roslin Cannot Join Their Father: Stopped Family Reunification

Because Austria is allegedly in a "state of emergency," the Interior Ministry is denying entry to thousands of children and spouses of refugees living here. What does this mean for those affected?

Report, FALTER 23/2025, 03.06.2025

Siblings Yosif and Roslin (left) are waiting to be allowed to join their father Aiman in Austria. They already had their plane tickets, then the embassy withdrew the visa

"Daddy is going with us to the zoo in Vienna," says Sekan, 8, "he promised us." Her brother Omer, 5, pulls up the sleeve of his Spiderman shirt and stretches his small upper arm toward the phone camera: "I am strong and I'm not afraid of wild animals."

Between the children and Schönbrunn Zoo lie more than 3,000 kilometers as the crow flies and the Austrian federal government. Sekan and Omer live with their mother Aysha in the Syrian city of Hasaka. Their father Yasin in Vienna.

In August 2023, Yasin was granted asylum in Austria. Since then, he has been trying to bring his wife and the two children to him.

For Sekan, Omer, and a few thousand other children, however, the message is: please wait. The turquoise-red-pink federal government wants to stop family reunification. A corresponding regulation is currently under review in parliament and is expected to be passed in June.

Family reunification is derived from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: every person has the right to private and family life.

Anyone who receives protection as a refugee in Austria may therefore bring their closest relatives — including spouses and minor children — to join them. However, this human right can be temporarily suspended to protect public order and national security.

It is precisely such a state of emergency that the federal government currently sees in Austria. In Vienna's schools in particular, there are said to be too many children who do not understand sufficient German. Therefore, no more refugee children should come. Moreover, the number of juvenile offenders among Syrians and Afghans is said to be particularly high, and unemployment among refugees is higher than among the rest of the population.

The state is therefore pressing the pause button on family reunification until the end of 2026 — until "we have relieved the systems and improved the systems," as Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) recently explained on ORF's press hour.

We are receiving more and more calls from people who are very worried about their families Daniel Bernhart, Red Cross

What this will mean for families is something Syrian refugees already know. For the past six months, they have been unable to bring their families to join them. With the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in early December 2024, the ÖVP-led Interior Ministry initiated a few thousand asylum revocation proceedings. This also stopped family reunification. Syrians account for about 90 percent of family proceedings. "Since December 2024, proceedings have declined sharply," says Daniel Bernhart, team leader for family reunification at the Red Cross. Only insecurity has increased. "We are receiving more and more calls from people who are very worried about their families."

The Red Cross represents applicants abroad in family proceedings and handles administrative procedures. "We currently have between 3,000 and 4,000 proceedings pending, some of which involve families who have been waiting since 2021 or 2022," says Bernhart. Some had already received official approval for an entry visa. "But then the Interior Ministry withdrew all positive decisions from the embassies in May 2024."

Aiman, 37, had already bought the plane tickets for his wife and their eight-year-old twins Yosif and Roslin. The children's beds were ready in the 2.5-room apartment he had rented for his family. Many of the fathers ask that their last names not be published. They fear it could become even harder for them to bring their families to join them. Falter was allowed to view all documents, including DNA tests and letters informing them that an asylum revocation proceeding had been initiated.

Aiman is Kurdish and, like Yasin, fled from Syria to Austria in 2021. At the end of 2023, he was granted asylum. Like thousands of other Syrians, he also received a letter last December stating that an asylum revocation proceeding had been initiated against him. He has not yet been summoned for an interview with the authorities; for months, he and his family have been in limbo. "Including deposit and furniture, my apartment cost me about 7,000 euros," he says. Money he saved up from his job as a cleaner. On weekdays he cleans between midnight and five in the morning, on weekends from 8 p.m. to three in the morning.

His family was supposed to follow in mid-December. But only a few days after the fall of Syrian dictator al-Assad, Aiman received information from the embassy: the visa for his family, which had already been approved, was now not valid after all. He should cancel the flights.

Aiman in his new apartment. He sold the children's beds: "I couldn't stand seeing my children's empty beds every day"

Since then, his wife and children have been stuck in a small village near the Syrian city of Qamishli close to the Turkish border. Once a week they drive to the nearest city to buy food. In the village, there is no school and no other children for Yosif and Roslin to play with.

There is no war, "but the power constantly goes out, and everything is broken," says the mother in a video call with Falter. During the day the thermometer shows 35 degrees, and when daughter Roslin takes a tour with the phone camera, there is nothing but sand to see.

For half a year now, thousands of Syrians in Austria do not know whether they can stay and bring their families to join them. Even if the asylum authority concludes that asylum for Syrians will not be revoked, the family is not automatically allowed to follow from Syria to Austria. The already submitted application would then no longer be valid. "Then spouses and children who want to travel to Austria must submit a new application for family reunification and pay the costs of the proceedings a second time," says Red Cross expert Bernhart.

That costs 200 euros per person and takes about a year. Added to this are the costs of travel to the nearest Austrian embassy. If documents expire during the waiting period, these must also be obtained anew.

Hussein, 27, also fears for his wife Mariam, 23. Five years ago, the two married in the Syrian city of Aleppo. For four years they have been unable to hold each other. In spring 2021, Hussein fled the war in Syria toward Europe. On their last evening together, Hussein and Mariam went swimming together one more time. "We have a lake that looks similar to the Wörthersee at your place in Klagenfurt," the Syrian says. "I love swimming, my wife not so much," says Hussein, "it was a proof of love that she swam along."

Since Hussein has been gone, Mariam lives with the in-laws in Aleppo. When the power isn't out, the two talk daily via Whatsapp. Mariam is currently training as a seamstress. "I like that in Austria women also work," says Mariam when Falter reaches her by phone in Syria. "I want to do that too." First, though, she has to learn German, says Hussein. He himself is currently in a German course. "In Syria I was an elementary school teacher," he says. "Now I want to start training as an after-school care worker right after the German course."

And when his wife is finally here, he promised to show her Austria. "First I want to go with her to Klagenfurt," he says. "That was my first stop in Austria, after all."

Instead of at the Wörthersee, Yasin, Hussein, Aiman, and several others are now sitting at the association "Nachbarinnen" right around the corner from the Brunnenmarkt in Vienna-Ottakring. The Nachbarinnen are a Viennese integration project. They support refugees in their native language to integrate well in Austria.

Numerous of the supported families come from war and crisis regions such as Syria, Afghanistan, or Somalia. "We notice that the families are extremely frustrated," says Christine Scholten, managing director of the Nachbarinnen. "We do encourage them to continue going to German class and looking for a job. But how are these people supposed to integrate in Austria if they have no prospects for their families?"

What Syrian families are currently experiencing threatens to soon affect people from countries like Afghanistan or Somalia as well. These two states account for the majority of the remaining applications for family reunification. Fatima fled Somalia in 2014. She left her four-year-old twin girls with her sister. "I knew I couldn't make the escape with three small children," she says. "That's why I only took the baby, the one that needed its mother the most."

In 2023, Fatima was granted asylum in Austria. "I have already paid 810 euros for the DNA test to prove that the two really are my children," she says. Now she fears that her daughters will fall under the new regulation. Today the girls are 14 years old. Their grandmother had them circumcised a few years ago. "I begged my mother on the phone not to do it," Fatima says. "But she said if they are already going to Europe, they should be clean girls."

In Syria the war is over, but there are still occasional clashes, Aysha, Yasin's wife, says in the video call. "Sometimes there is shooting in the streets. That's why I can't take the children to kindergarten and school every day."

Otherwise, the three hardly leave their small apartment. "Children are kidnapped again and again. By whom, I don't know. Unfortunately, there are also gangsters around." Leisure activities like playing in the park or going to the playground do not exist for her children. "Daddy told us that at your place you can play outside. Do you really have playgrounds that are safe there?" daughter Sekan wants to know.

Another father from Syria shows photos of his daughters Lemar and Leen that he has on his phone. "Lemar doesn't speak, she is autistic," he says. "I don't know when I can finally bring her to me."

The women are sitting in Syria and don't understand why their men can't finally bring them to safety Abo Farid, Syrian

The Syrian Abo Farid is also a guest at the Nachbarinnen. He is the administrator of a WhatsApp group. More than 750 men from Syria who are waiting for their families to be allowed to follow to Austria exchange information there. In a separate list, 232 men have now registered. They are all waiting in Austria for their families. And they are already considering fighting the family reunification stop in court. "Unfortunately, we notice that more and more marriages do not survive this uncertainty," says Abo Farid. "In our community, divorces are increasing," he says. Yet it is quite unusual in Syria for women to get divorced. "But the women are sitting in Syria, they don't know the legal situation in Austria, are disappointed, and don't understand why their men can't finally bring them to safety."

How much this uncertainty gnaws at the families is confirmed by Aiman's wife, who is waiting with the children in the village near the Syrian city of Qamishli. "Since my husband called me to tell me he has to cancel the plane tickets, I haven't laughed a single time," she says.

Now her husband is sitting alone in the 51-square-meter apartment in Vienna-Favoriten. The accommodation where he wanted to receive his family costs him 800 euros a month in rent. "For me alone, it's too big and expensive, but according to the lease I have to stay at least a year," he says. In the planned children's room, two mattresses lie on the floor. "I had already bought two children's beds. But I sold them again recently. I just couldn't stand it psychologically, seeing the two empty beds of my children every day." So that his twins learn something, even though there is no school in the Syrian village where they are waiting with their mother, Aiman pays a teacher to teach them online. For two hours a day, the children now drill English. To pay for the lessons and also for the food for his family in Syria, he cleans train stations at night and waits tables during the day.

"At first I had an online teacher for my children who was supposed to teach them German," says Aiman. "But we don't know what happens next. That's why the children are now learning English." Because they can always use that. His wife has also started an online German course in Syria. "But by now it's hard to motivate myself," she says. "I don't know if I'll ever be allowed to join my husband in Austria."