International students at Berlin university facing deportation

Around 300 international students at a private university in Berlin have received deportation notices after the local immigration authority said it did not recognise their degree programme.

IU Berlin students facing deportation

According to a report by Euronews, around 300 students enrolled at the International University (IU) in Berlin have received deportation notices since March 2025, because immigration authorities “do not recognise IU studies as face-to-face teaching”. 

Deep Shambarkar - an Indian national who has been studying business management at the private university since July 2024 - explained to the news outlet that he had recently received a deportation notice from the Berlin Immigration Office (LEA).

According to Shambarkar, LEA suspects the university employs too few staff and that it does not have the proper accreditation to teach its courses. On its website, the IU claims to be a "state-recognised and accredited university".

Speaking to Euronews, the IU said that at the beginning of 2025, LEA changed its policy on issuing student visas for hybrid degree programmes, “without informing IU International University”. The university explained that it would introduce new regulations in 2026 to ensure that face-to-face courses met the requirements needed for students to obtain and keep a visa to study in Germany.

Students feel abandoned by IU

In the meantime, students like Shambarkar have been left in limbo. Instead of completing his remaining modules and thesis, the 25-year-old is currently involved in a legal dispute with the LEA and feels abandoned by the university.

Having taken out a 20.000 euro bank loan in India to fund his studies abroad, Shambarkar is worried that the university will not refund his fees should he be forced to leave Germany and be unable to complete his degree.

In retrospect, “I never felt like I was at a university,” Shambarkar told the news outlet, “There were a few classrooms, a few courses. I chose the right degree programme for me, but not the right university." He said the uncertain situation was mentally and physically draining, and that he was being “treated like a criminal” as a result of the university’s administrative failures.

A fellow student, who remained anonymous in the report, had been given one month's notice to leave Germany and said the ordeal had “massively damaged [their] psyche”. “I no longer have an appetite and suffer from nightmares and insomnia. My life feels like hell,” they explained.

The IU was founded in 1998, has campuses in 37 German cities and around 130.000 students, one of the highest student populations of any university in Germany. Around 4.500 IU students are Indian nationals.

For now, the university has said it will “suspend all new student admissions to the Berlin campus until further notice". The university plans to open a new campus in Cologne in 2026.