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According to a communication from the Federal Foreign Office of 27 October 2020 to Akbulut Gökay, the spokesperson for migration and integration policy of the parliamentary group DIE LINKE (question on SF no. 9-393), it is currently not possible to take the German test required for the reunification of spouses in a total of 81 third countries (including the main countries of origin Egypt, Albania, Iran, Lebanon and Mexico).

The Court of Justice of the European Union decided with its judgment from 18 June 2020 in the Ryanair case (C-754/18) that a family member of an EU citizen who is not a national of a Member State but who holds a permanent residence card shall be exempt from the visa requirement for entry into the territory of the Member States. Furthermore, this card is to be considered as proof, in itself, of the holder’s family member status.

For young, healthy men returning to the Kabul area and the city of Masar-e Sharif, the general living conditions in Afghanistan mean that there is regularly no danger of deportation even if they do not receive support from family or tribal members. Even the formal act of baptism and the membership in the Catholic Church which is based on this act alone does not lead to a ban on deportation. This was decided by the Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate in Koblenz in its judgment of 22 January 2020 (file number: 13 A 11356/19.OVG).

On 23 June 2016, UK citizens voted to leave the EU. On 29 March 2017, the UK formally notified the European Council of its intention to leave the EU. On 17 October 2019, the European Council (Article 50) endorsed the withdrawal agreement as agreed by the negotiators of both sides. It also endorsed the revised political declaration on the framework of the future EU-UK relationship.

On March 28, 2019, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that under European Union legislation a spouse from a third country that is married to an EU citizen has the right to reside in Germany and is entitled to the right of free movement even if they live separately from one another and the EU citizen temporarily returns to his/her country of origin (BVerwG 1 C 9.18).

The Higher Administrative Court of Hesse issued a ruling on 5 March 2018 (case no: 9 B 56/19) withdrawing the right to free movement for European Union workers from a Bulgarian national. The Court issued this ruling because an overall assessment of the objective circumstances in her case led it to believe that she did not comply with the intent of the freedom of movement regulations, even though she formally met the conditions set out under EU law. The court came to this conclusion because the Bulgarian had acted with the intention of benefiting from EU law by arbitrarily meeting the prerequisites for freedom of movement as a worker in order to obtain additional social security benefits.

The Court of Justice of the European Union decided on 26 March 2019 in its judgment in case C-129/18 (SM v Entry Clearance Officer, UK Visa Section) that a minor in the guardianship of a citizen of the EU under the Algerian kafala system cannot be regarded as a ‘direct descendant’ of that citizen. However, that citizen’s Member State of residence must facilitate, following an assessment, that minor’s entry to and residence in its territory.

On 12 September 2018, the European Commission published a proposal for a recasting of the 2008 Return Directive, which stipulates common standards and procedures in Member States for returning irregular migrants who are non-EU nationals. Effectively returning irregular migrants is one of the key objectives of the European Union’s migration policy. However, Member States currently face challenges: national practices implementing the EU rules vary and the overall return rates remain below expectations. The proposal was not accompanied by a Commission impact assessment. The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) therefore asked the European Parliamentary Research Service to provide a targeted substitute impact assessment of the proposed recast Return Directive.

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