I know of cases where equally qualified (University degree, etc.) Syrians received 20% to 30% less than Germans.

However, things are pretty different when you're applying as a student vs. applying as a software developer. There's going to be a lot more scrutiny of the financial situation of a potential student from a country in crisis than for a skilled worker with a job offer. German politics have shifted in recent years because of a labor shortage to where, at least officially, there's a lot of support for qualified workers to move here.

Now, that doesn't mean that there's no racism, but while I don't have any Syrian friends here, I do have a handful of friends from Iran and I've not heard of them having problems at all with things like setting up bank accounts or managing official stuff.

Well, I think, considering that German is pretty much a must in Germany and that it must be an incredibly hard language to learn for people from Syria, it seems like a relative success.

Of course, 32% being unemployed is still very high, but that may be expected under the circumstances.

And this is in addition to the general cultural shock caused by moving from place where you can kill your daughter/sister for having unwanted sexual relationships to place where you aren't even expected to molest women for walking in public place without their husbands and face covers.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2009/country-chapters/syria

http://newobserveronline.com/mass-invader-sex-attacks-in-stu...

Just one example, i could bring up hundreds.

The parents maybe won’t. But their kids. Watch out in the real world or on TV for the children of Syrian refugees that came here in 2016. In the mean time many of those graduated from German schools now and speak German very well (schools invested quite a bit in making sure of that) and learn a profession or even enroll in a University program.

While Germany is certainly not a classic immigration country like the US is, as a German I really got the impression that we became much more open minded. Personally, at my work place we started out as a prototypical mid-range company financed by Bavarian entrepreneurs and were pretty much speaking German only. Nowadays (10 years later) we‘ve got many Indian, Turkish and Eastern European colleagues and speak almost only English in meetings. Even our CEO is non-German now. I don’t think that would have worked 10 years ago nut younger co-workers nowadays tend to be much more proficient in speaking English.

Of course, living in Munich and Berlin won’t give you quite the same experience like living in Rostock-Lichtenhagen… but parent mentioned she or he plans on founding a start-up. Office space is less expensive in smaller cities like Rostock (or Wismar or you name your favorite less world famous German city), too, and with remote work it is much easier these days to setup an international team in a German company located even in more obscure places. And it gives neighborhoods a chance to develop and rise from their obscurity.

Anybody reading this from the city of Neubrandenburg? ;) (I just learned about its existence a couple of years ago as a German native.)

I wanted to send my sister (Syrian) to continue her education in medicine, the German embassy in Syria completely rejected the application.

I tried in Dubai, they asked me to open a bank account for her in Germany, all banks refused to do so. I had eventually to find workarounds (through some powerful friends) and I was able finally to open that account in Wiesbaden.

Now my sister has an official residency visa and she went to open an account in Berlin, but again all banks rejected her request because she is Syrian.

Racism can be really ugly.

Edit: Knowing HN, I'll be the one called racist as opposed to the comment right next to me that's saying terrible things about Muslims.

Not having all your family around you and controlling you and living after there worldviews.

As a native German, I can assure you that no native German people are being "displaced". This is just a semi-ancient right-wing trope about "Them foreigners stealing our jobs", with the occasional "and women" attached to it.

In the 90's these same people were railing against eastern Europeans, and how their culture and values are supposedly not "compatible with Western Values". Now, over a decade after the EU eastward expansion, rarely anybody seems to remember that part of history and the formerly marginalized are now so "assimilated" that they are part of the very same mobs which used to marginalize them.

Nothing about this whole topic is new, even the surrounding social unrests ain't new and are comparably civil compared to what went on not too long ago [0]. The only thing that's changed is the color of the people that are being scapegoated as the source of all problems and controversy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostock-Lichtenhagen_riots

If you include violations of immigration law 40.4% of all suspects in Germany are now foreign, if you don't then it is 30.5%, ten years ago those numbers were 22.0% and 19.4% respectively, that is there has been a massive increase of suspected criminal activity by foreigners and violations of immigration law in particular.

Lots more interesting information can be found here:(https://www.bka.de/DE/AktuelleInformationen/StatistikenLageb...).

There is 2000km between Germany and Syria. People in Syria are different group than desendants of Syrians in Germany. German govermnent is different than most individual native germans. Nobody has to abide by any rules or agreements, it just happens that currently some rules make sense for large majority. For now. Someone being nice to someone else doesn't exactly guarantee anything to anybody else.

I think the walls are completely meaningless in every sense. They don't make anybody terrorist, refugee or safe.

Compassion might just as well show them that we are foolish. Violence might just show them that we have loot to protect. It's hard to call someone devil when they are nice to you, but it's still relatively easy to be asshole yourself.

I advocate pretty much just two things. Dropping less bombs to middle east and cutting social security form refugees. That should fight the root causes of current immigration in short/medium term.