Freedom House protection, a category that does not grant refugee or asylumseeker status but allows an individual to remain in the country in recognition that they may face serious harm upon returning to their home country. In 2015, four percent of individuals who received protection were given subsidiary status. That percentage jumped to 35 percent in 2016, peaked at 37 in 2017, and has since remained elevated at approximately 30 percent.39 Asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea, both populations vulnerable to transnational repression, are given subsidiary protection at high rates. Subsidiary protection provides less security than refugee status, leaving recipients more vulnerable to targeting by their origin state. Its temporary nature requires more frequent renewal than refugee status, creating an administrative burden and long-term insecurity.40 Differences in documentation leave recipients of subsidiary protections reliant on their homecountry embassies for passport renewal and other documents, such as marriage licenses.41 Continued contact with embassies is a risk factor for surveillance, intimidation, and other harms. Subsidiary protection does not include the right to family reunification, unlike refugee and asylum status, exposing recipients to coercion by proxy. Refugee reception centers Refugee reception centers exemplify the tradeoff between efficiency and protection for at-risk individuals The BAMF divides asylum seekers among the 16 federal states, with a percentage of asylum seekers assigned to each state.42 Asylum seekers are placed among the states on the basis of their country of origin, with each refugee reception center responsible for refugees from a specific country or countries. For example, Thai asylum seekers are divided among two centers in North Rhine-Westphalia and two in Lower Saxony.43 Asylum seekers live in the provided housing for up to six months, or until their application is decided.44 The centers are an efficient means of providing goods and services to people in the asylum process. However, that same centralization inadvertently creates risks for people vulnerable to transnational repression. First, publicly listing which refugee welcome centers house populations from which country make them potential targets of surveillance, intimidation, and attack. For example, supporters of the Eritrean government visited refugee housing to urge Eritreans to pay the diaspora tax—a percentage of earnings the Eritrean government requires all Eritreans abroad to pay, regardless of their status.45 A Saudi woman reported intimidating visits from anonymous men she believed were government loyalists.46 Second, living among others from the same origin state creates opportunities for transnational repression to occur within that group of asylum seekers.47 In one example, a Saudi asylum seeker learned that investigators in Saudi Arabia were questioning her friends about specific details of her life in Germany. The details they knew about her whereabouts and activities were so specific she worried that someone she interacted with while living in the provided refugee housing was reporting information to Saudi authorities.48 A 2017 guide on extremism and secret service activities published by the BfV for refugee aid workers notes that refugees who acted against the government in their home state are potential targets of their origin state’s intelligence operatives in Germany. It warns that foreign intelligence officers may pose as refugees to surveil fellow refugees and interfere with their efforts to gain asylum status. The document also notes that surveillance can result in harm to their family members who remain in the origin country.49 While the guide emphasizes the importance of identifying these problems, it does not offer harm-mitigation solutions beyond being alert to these issues throughout normal asylum processes. It also frames recruitment of refugees to act on behalf of the foreign state as one of the goals of espionage, which is a separate issue from transnational repression and frames targeted refugees as potential security threats, rather than victims of ongoing state violence. German authorities treat information about individuals received from foreign states, including through Interpol, with well-warranted skepticism. Promising oversight In general, German authorities treat information about individuals received from foreign states, including through Interpol, with well-warranted skepticism. Authorities generally do not rely on information supplied by origin countries when reviewing asylum claims. Extradition requests, requests for legal freedomhouse.org 7