ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - When 15 German federal police raided Adel Khaylani’s apartment to deport him, he made a snap decision - to escape by jumping from the third floor.
“I didn't want this to happen to me, and I didn’t want to be arrested," said Khaylani, who shattered bones in the fall.
A doctor who examined him warned his life was at risk and needed urgent care.
“I bled from my ears and my whole body. The doctor came and said ‘he’s dying and needs to be treated’.”
After what Khaylani described as only basic treatment, he said he was returned to custody.
What followed, he said, was worse. “They beat me badly, even though my hands and legs were already broken."
Khaylani was one of 40 Iraqi Kurdish and Arab asylum seekers deported from Germany this week in what advocates say is part of a swift and accelerating crackdown on migrants.
He now lives in Harir, a town in Erbil province’s Shaqlawa District, far from the life he had built in Europe over five years, and with no warning it would end.
"Without any warning, the police came to my house and said, ‘You had been deported’," he said.
Kurds from Iraq and Turkey are among those caught up in deportation sweeps in Germany, where the government has canceled over 8,200 refugee residence permits over the last year. The immigration crackdowns have deterred migration, with the total number of asylum applicants falling to a 10-year low.
Dilan Sarkawt's story unfolded more slowly - but ended just as abruptly.
The young man from Sulaimani spent nearly a decade in Germany, becoming fluent in the language, earning professional accreditations, and joining a local sports club. Then, after a decade, he was put on a plane to Baghdad.
"During those 10 years I was playing tennis with a club and I did nothing illegal in Germany," Sarkawt told Rudaw’s Diaspora television program. "I had five professional certificates in Germany and spoke the language well."
The deportation, Sarkawt said, came without any sense that his life there had been seen - or valued.
''I was handcuffed and beaten,” he said.
German government figures show citizens from Georgia, Albania, and Turkey faced the highest deportation numbers in 2025, with more than 600 from each country removed. The same three nationalities topped the rankings in 2024 as well - suggesting a systemic enforcement effort rather than a one-off surge.
For Khaylani, the statistics mean little. Sitting in Harir, the policy doesn’t capture what was lost.
"My life was in danger," he said.
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