From prison into uncertainty: Belarusian refugees between Asylum, paperwork and fear of deportation

My name is Yana, I am a project coordinator and the founder of LIBERECO’s Legal Help team. Together with my team, I provide legal support to Belarusians in Germany on questions of residence and asylum.

Let me give you some insight on how we work here, what people go through after being forced to leave their homes, how the German bureaucracy works in practice, and how we try to help exactly where support is urgently needed, but often not sufficient.

In 2020, Belarus held presidential elections.

The official results triggered massive protests across the country: people took to the streets for months, joined strikes, signed petitions and spoke out openly. The regime responded with criminal prosecution, mass arrests and torture. Thousands were forced to flee – not because they wanted to, but because staying would have meant imprisonment. Some of them came to Germany and since late 2020, I have been actively supporting them, first as a volunteer, then as part of the organisation Razam e.V., and later, from 2024, as a team member at LIBERECO.

In the beginning, almost everything depended on volunteers – people who had already been living in Germany for a long time and were trying, at the same time, to raise awareness of what was happening in Belarus and to help those who had just arrived. Without special training, without any experience in working with traumatised people – but with a strong wish to do something.

On the other side were people who had left everything behind:

jobs, homes and the lives they had built for themselves over many years. A lot of them had taken to the streets in 2020, joined strikes, signed petitions and spoke out – without knowing what this would mean for their future. What they encountered here was very far from what they had hoped for.

What I saw then and still see today felt deeply unjust. People who had risked everything arrived here and found themselves in terrible conditions, without adequate support, in isolation. The following are just a few examples from thousands of cases:

The first thing families were confronted with during the pandemic was quarantine. They were placed in small containers for around two weeks: without internet, without the possibility to shop for themselves, in complete isolation. Hot meals were delivered once a day – industrially prepared microwave food – and not always reliably. In theory, people with health issues could apply for different food, but most did not even know about this, and getting approval from the authorities was everything but easy.

After quarantine came placement:

first, people were brought to a centre for initial registration, then, they were placed in a shared accommodation facility, always within the competent federal state. In most cases, people were placed in small villages where they ended up in complete isolation: without language skills, without social contacts, with very limited opportunities to integrate. Conditions in the facilities were often shocking: shared rooms, six to seven square metres per person, cockroaches, bedbugs. And this went on for years, because the asylum procedure usually takes one and a half up to two years, and applicants are required to stay in these facilities for the entire duration. There are exceptions, but the criteria are strict and official approval can take a very long time – if it is granted at all. In case of rejection, an appeal process will start which can drag on for years. The longest case we have seen so far: almost four years of waiting, with no end in sight. One family came to us after their asylum claim had been rejected. Their children have grown up here, learnt the language, won school competitions, built their lives in Germany. The parents work and are integrated. Yet, the family still faces the threat of deportation to a country where the parents would go to prison and the children would be sent to a state institution.

This is just one among thousands of cases.

But the other stories we deal with every day are no less difficult. There are people who have lost their home twice. After 2020, they fled persecution in Belarus and started a new life in Ukraine. When Russia launched its full‑scale invasion in February 2022, they had to flee again. Once in Germany, they were treated differently from Ukrainian citizens and did not receive temporary protection under Section 24 of the German Residence Act.

And then came September 2023.

By decree, Belarusian embassies and consulates worldwide were forbidden to issue, renew or replace passports for citizens abroad. This affected everyone: those who have lived here for many years and those who have just arrived. Residence permits, employment, the very possibility to stay in Germany legally – all of this depends on a valid passport. Those who do not have one – and cannot obtain one – find themselves back at square one. Only this time, here.