Saxony's Refugee Council is mobilizing against the imminent deportation of Pham Phi Son, who came to Germany from Vietnam in 1987 as a GDR contract worker. The Chemnitz resident is being threatened with deportation because he had been in Vietnam for over six months for medical treatment.
Pham Phi Son came to East Germany (GDR) from Vietnam in 1987 as a contract worker. He and his partner today have a five-year-old daughter who was born in Germany. After 35 years living and working in Germany, a hardship commission (Härtefallkommission des Landes) rejected his right to stay in the country because he was in Vietnam for more than six months in 2016 for medical care.
The Refugee Council of Saxony in Germany set up an online petition to the state parliament on Friday (August 19) against Pham's deportation. By Sunday noon over 39,000 people had signed.
"The procedure is a scandal, as it threatens a fully integrated family that has enough job offers to support itself," the petition read.
Chemnitz migration officer Etelka Kobuß, who said she knows the family, described the case on social media platform Facebook as "scandalous" and "inhuman."
"After more than 30 years, Mr. Pham is just as much a de facto resident as his daughter, who was born in Germany and is now 5 years old, is," wrote Kobuß.
According to Saxony's Commissioner for Foreigners Geert Mackenroth, the hardship commission dealt with the case in 2019 and rejected the request, German news agency network RND reported. A new application in 2022 was again rejected because the "factual or legal situation has not changed significantly in favor of the person concerned," said Mackenroth, who is now chair of the commission. The case has been passed on to Germany's interior ministry.
Impending deportation comes amid Rostock pogrom anniversary
The petition comes at a time Germany is commemorating the Rostock-Lichtenhagen tragedy.
From August 22 to 26, 1992, around 2,000 people besieged an apartment block that had been turned into an asylum-seeker reception center and a residence mostly occupied by Vietnamese people who had worked as foreign contract workers in East Germany.
"Germany for the Germans!" They chanted.
Violence escalated when hundreds of right-wing extremists traveled from across Germany to support the rioters, who attacked the residence with molotov cocktails, stones and bottles.
Thirty years on, witnesses are still demanding justice and accountability from authorities and politicians.