Austria deports first Syrian since civil war, says more will follow
VIENNA (Reuters) -Austria's conservative-led government said on Thursday it had carried out its first deportation of a Syrian back to their home country in almost 15 years, making it the first European Union country to do so since the outbreak of Syria's civil war.
The unnamed Syrian man had been convicted of an unspecified crime in November 2018, given a seven-year sentence and stripped of his refugee status, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said, adding that he could not go into specifics.
The Syrian man's legal adviser, Ruxandra Staicu, declined to specify the nature of his conviction but said he was 32.
"A Syrian criminal was deported from Austria to Syria today, specifically to Damascus," Karner told reporters, pledging that more would follow soon.
"I believe it is an extremely important signal that Austria is pursuing a tough, strict, forceful but fair asylum policy in that those who endanger others, criminals, will be removed from the country," he added.
While EU member states including Austria and Germany have been keen to strike agreements with Syria's new Islamist-led government to enable deportations, rights groups have said it is too early to tell how the security situation will evolve and whether it is truly safe to deport people there.
Rights groups are concerned that Austria's move will create a precedent, encouraging other EU member states to deport Syrians amid rising anti-migration sentiment across the bloc.
"There is no reliable information on how the new regime will treat the returnee. In this volatile situation, it is irresponsible to conduct a deportation simply for PR reasons," said Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz, a lawyer and spokesperson for Asylum Coordination Austria, a platform of Austrian NGOs.
TOUGH STANCE
Austria's three-party ruling coalition has made a tough stance on immigration one of its hallmarks as it seeks to erode support for the far-right Freedom Party, which came first in September's parliamentary election with an even harder line on what has long been a prominent issue in national politics.
Within days of President Bashar al-Assad's fall from power in December, Austria's previous government, led by the same conservative People's Party in power now, suspended the processing of Syrians' asylum claims and said it would work towards repatriating Syrians already in the country.
Syrians are the top nationality among asylum seekers and refugees in Austria since 2015, Interior Ministry data show. Austrian law allows the authorities to revoke a refugee's status in some cases within five years of it being granted.
"There will be, and will have to be, other deportations towards Syria. These are also being prepared," Karner said, also mentioning Afghanistan, another country that many refugees and asylum seekers in Austria come from.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump: I'll spare undocumented farm workers if bosses can vouch for them
Donald Trump said he will spare undocumented farm workers from deportation if their bosses can vouch for them. The US president floated the idea for the exemptions, which could also apply to hotel and restaurant workers, during a visit to Iowa. Legislation is already being drafted for the carve-out how to deal with undocumented agricultural workers with Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary. 'You know, they've had people working for them for years. And we're going to do something … we're going to sort of put the farmers in charge,' he said on Thursday night. 'If a farmer has been with one of these people that worked so hard – they bend over all day, we don't have too many people that can do that, but they work very hard, and they know him very well, and some of the farmers are literally, you know, they cry when they see this happen. 'If a farmer is willing to vouch for these people, in some way, Kristi, I think we're going to have to just say that's going to be good, right?' Mr Trump was repeating remarks he made earlier in the week. Underpinning the proposed exemptions is a dispute within the administration, with Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, pushing for concessions for farmers and their workers, while immigration hardliner and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller strongly opposes any concessions. At one point, raids on farms, meatpacking plants and restaurants were paused. But they were resumed again after immigration hawks, including Mr Miller and Ms Noem, leaned on the president. Mr Trump's remarks this week suggest that he could be leaning towards backing his agriculture secretary after all. According to the Centre for Migration Studies, there are around 283,000 undocumented farm workers in the US, with nearly half being employed in California; other estimates put the figure even higher. More than 80 per cent come from Mexico, with the remainder hailing from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The Trump deportation drive has wrought havoc on the agriculture industry. Fearful of being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as many as 70 per cent of farm workers in some parts of the country have been staying away. This has led to crops rotting in fields and labour shortages at meat-packing facilities. 'We do not have enough workforce in the United States to do manual work, to do those jobs that other people are not qualified to do and do not want to do,' Alexandra Sossa, chief executive of Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, told Newsweek. 'For example, we are running into a problem where we do not have enough farm workers to grow the food we eat every day.' According to Farmonaut, an agriculture technology company, the stricter immigration polices are creating a labour shortage, which is putting up food prices. There is similar pressure on the hospitality industry, with hotels and restaurants heavily dependent on immigrant labour. Even Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago has imported foreign workers, with Department of Labour statistics showing that it applied for 136 H-2B visas for non-agricultural workers in 2023. 'We are encouraged that the president recognises the valuable contributions farmworkers play in America's food security,' John Walt Boatright, director of Government Affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation told The Telegraph 'Farmers support a secure border and safe communities, and they also understand that without a stable workforce, it's not possible to get food from the farm to the tables of America's families.' 'We have not seen specifics on President Trump's plans, but we urge him and Congress to address long-term agriculture labour issues by revising overreaching regulations, modernising current guestworker programmes to allow for year-round access to employees, and fixing outdated wage rate calculations that put help out of reach for many farmers.' While the administration is willing to make concessions for these key groups of workers, there will be no let-up in ICE's activities. Within days of the announcement of an 'Alligator Alcatraz' to house deportees in Florida, Alaska, albeit tongue in cheek, suggested its large bear population could do a similar job in the frozen north. The state has the option of bidding for a slice of the $5 billion earmarked in the Big Beautiful Bill for the construction and renovation of ICE's detention facilities.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Don't believe the conventional wisdom. Ukraine can still lose.
PARIS — Soviet losses in World War II exceeded those of all other Allied forces combined and were roughly double those of Nazi Germany, whose capital, Berlin, ultimately fell to Red Army troops. Keep that in mind when you hear that Moscow can't possibly sustain the colossal military and economic costs it is suffering from the Ukrainian bloodbath Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated three years ago in pursuit of his neo-imperial fever dream. It can.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Britain ‘vulnerable' after Labour reversals, warns credit ratings giant
Britain's public finances have been left 'vulnerable' by Sir Keir Starmer's about-turn on welfare cuts, the world's largest credit ratings agency has warned. S&P Global said the inability to make 'modest cuts' to the welfare budget showed Rachel Reeves faced a 'formidable political challenge' to keep spending under control. 'In our view, it remains to be seen whether the Government succeeds in following through on its wider plans for keeping public spending in check as announced in the June 2025 spending review,' the agency told clients. A failure to rein in runaway public spending could leave Britain ill-prepared for future potential financial crises. S&P warned that the Government had shown an inability to tackle spending, including the proposed £5bn welfare cut, meaning it had 'very limited budgetary room for manoeuvre'. The agency said high spending would also keep government borrowing costs higher for longer as the UK's credit rating would not improve until its finances were in check. It said: 'We consider the UK's fiscal position as vulnerable and one of the key constraints on our 'AA' sovereign rating. We expect that UK budgetary consolidation will remain a slow process.' Sir Keir was forced to gut planned welfare reforms to avoid an embarrassing defeat in the Commons on Tuesday. The 11th-hour climbdown means the legislation will deliver no savings and will blow a £5bn hole in Ms Reeves's budget. S&P Global said the episode had brought into question whether the Chancellor could balance the nation's books as planned. The credit ratings agency expects the UK deficit to be reduced only slightly from 5.9pc of GDP last year to 5.5pc this year. Ratings agencies are used by the world's investors to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers, including countries. The industry is dominated by just three companies, of which S&P Global is the world's biggest. As such, its verdict on Britain's finances is hugely influential. S&P's update does not suggest it is considering changing the UK's current credit rating. However, it will be seen as a warning to the Government about the urgency with which it must tackle the public finances. It comes a day after major bond investor Legal & General warned that repeated policy changes from Labour had shaken investors' faith in the Government's plans. The cost of government borrowing on Friday remained higher than before Tuesday's vote on the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. The yield on 10-year UK gilts – a benchmark for the cost of servicing the national debt – stood at 4.53pc, compared to 4.45pc before Tuesday's vote. Jack Meaning, an economist at Barclays, said extra spending on benefits and anticipated cuts to the growth outlook meant 'the Chancellor's fiscal rules [were] highly likely to be breached at the autumn Budget'. 'The fragility of the fiscal position has come into focus, making tax increases in the autumn almost inevitable,' he said, predicting an extension to the long freeze to income tax thresholds. Salman Ahmed, at investment giant Fidelity International, by contrast said the Chancellor may put off balancing the books in the autumn and instead hope for growth to come to the rescue. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
