Greece Reopens Asylum Cases for Syrians and Afghans, Moves Toward Deportations

Athens, Greece – Bashir, a Muslim Syrian, has lived in Greece since 2014. He married another Syrian woman there and three months ago, they welcomed their first son. After years of picking olives and oranges, learning Greek and metalworking, and finally buying his own equipment to work as an independent craftsman, Bashir felt life was stabilizing.

Two months ago, authorities handed him a paper asking him to restate his reasons for coming to Greece and why he should return to Syria. Bashir (who asked for his surname to be withheld) was granted asylum in 2015 due to Syria's civil war. The war ended in December 2024, and Bashir became one of 1,200 Syrians whose asylum cases were reopened in February.

"It's a disaster," Bashir told Al Jazeera. "I don't understand why this is happening. If they decide I must leave the country, can my family stay?"

Bashir's lawyer, Angeliki Theodoropoulou, said only men have received such notices so far — not only from Syria but also from Afghanistan, where the civil war is also considered over with the Taliban's victory in August 2021. However, she argued that neither Syria nor Afghanistan is necessarily safe to return to.

"We believe this is linked to the European Union's stance on Syria and Afghanistan, as well as the fact that quite a few people are voluntarily returning, which encourages authorities to say: 'Let's see if these people can go back,'" Theodoropoulou said.

She added that the entire international protection system is tightening for these two nationalities. "We are seeing very few people being granted asylum, and many applications being rejected."

"We don't understand what criteria they are using to decide Syria is safe," Bashir said.

Earlier this year, fresh clashes erupted between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), while Israel continues scattered attacks on the country.

Bilal said he feels uncomfortable with the idea of living in Syria for cultural and political reasons after 15 years away. "Many refugees here feel the same as I do," he said.

Jihad (also requesting anonymity) has similar concerns, but for the opposite reason. He has lived legally in Greece since 2001 and runs a small clothing store. When Bashar al-Assad's regime fell, his family also fled because he and his family were Assad supporters. He fears persecution for his views. "If they just look at my Facebook or what I wrote before, they would definitely put me in prison," Jihad said.

Both men have clean judicial records, pay taxes and social insurance, and raise families in Greece. Both say they would flee to another country rather than return to Syria.

Greece's exclusionary policy

Greek Migration Minister Thanos Plevris announced in February that he had ordered the reopening of any asylum cases that could be revoked. Last year, Greece revoked the asylum of nearly 200 people, compared to 400 in the previous decade. Dozens more cases are under review this year. The policy appears to have a religious dimension.

Greece last year suspended asylum applications from mainly Muslim asylum seekers from Libya for three months. The majority of those whose asylum was revoked come from Muslim-majority countries. In a recent parliamentary committee hearing, Plevris stated clearly that Greece prioritizes non-Muslim migrant labor.

"There are countries with which we share no common values, and that is mainly due to religion, let's be clear, because of hardline Islam," Plevris said. "So you must choose countries that are religiously neutral or Christian. We are negotiating with Georgia, the Philippines, Armenia, India."

Greece has also tightened migration policy in other ways. In September 2025, it passed a deportation law that Plevris described as "the strictest deportation policy in the entire EU," allowing the government to jail those who refuse deportation. Asylum seekers whose claims are denied can be fitted with ankle monitors and given only two weeks to leave voluntarily. Otherwise, they face a €5,000 ($5,870) fine and between two and five years' detention in closed camps.

In February, the ruling conservative New Democracy party passed a law stipulating that if any aid worker is charged with helping bring asylum seekers into Greece, their entire relief organization can be struck from the ministry's list. That could mean losing funding and access to refugee camps, and potentially being shut down.

Broader context

Europe is undergoing a transition as it prepares to implement the Pact on Asylum and Migration next month. The pact requires tough border policies and deportation for those denied asylum, with each member state managing its own policies.

"We are at a pivotal moment. We are about to see the implementation of the European pact. This will fundamentally change how migration works," Kristin Fabbe, Chair of Business and Comparative Politics at the European University Institute, said at a recent Delphi Economic Forum event in Athens.

The biggest bottleneck, she said, "is that Europe has not yet figured out how to carry out deportations on a large scale … to reform asylum and migration, you have to carry out deportations on a large scale, and the data shows that is impossible."

Greece, an EU frontline state, has 938,000 legally residing migrants among its population of 10.3 million — a relatively high number. Of these, more than 137,000 are asylum seekers or under international protection.

With the Middle East and North Africa still unstable, the government is concerned about the potential scale of future refugee flows. More than one million asylum seekers crossed Greece's borders in 2015. In subsequent years, some EU members took in thousands of asylum cases from Greece and Italy as a show of solidarity, and tens of thousands of people who had been granted asylum in Greece moved to other EU countries. Those countries agreed to keep them, but that may not necessarily happen again under the new pact. Observers suggest this explains Greece's tough stance.

Commenting on the political mood in Europe, Fabbe said, "The legitimacy, the inviolability of deportation solutions is being challenged, but I think we will see an increase in those solutions and new institutional mechanisms."