Standard residency rules don't apply to US soldiers or their families who live abroad. This creates problems for non-US citizens in this situation, explains Lodemé Pendergraph, a South African spouse of an active-duty serviceman in Germany.
As opposed to most foreign residents – who generally need a residence permit of some kind to live in Germany – members of the US armed forces and their families are allowed to remain in the country under a Status of Forces Agreement (often referred to simply as ‘SOFA status’).
This legal arrangement between Germany and the US clarifies the legal status of military personnel, civilian employees of the US armed forces and their dependents; and clarifies the rules for entry / exit of the country, taxation, employment and criminal jurisdiction.
Generally speaking, having SOFA status makes living abroad a bit easier for US troops and their families. In Germany, for example, people with SOFA status don’t need to register their address with the authorities – and they can usually skip the rest of the bureaucracy around getting a residence permit as well.
But for Lodemé Pendergraph, a South African who moved to Germany as the spouse of an active-duty US serviceman, having SOFA status actually came with additional limitations and challenges.
To help other non-American US military spouses in a similar position in Germany, Lodemé told The Local about the arduous process of obtaining a Schengen visa as a person with SOFA status.
Stuck in limbo
Lodemé described the life of foreign military spouses in Germany as a unique bureaucratic limbo.
For American family members of US service men and women, SOFA status, in addition to a US passport, allows them to enter and exit Germany without issue. But as a South African passport holder, she found she wasn’t entitled to the same freedoms.
“As a foreign spouse with a weak passport, I needed to have a visa to enter [Germany],” Lodemé said. “But because I'm affiliated with the military, I don't get a Schengen visa, so figuring out what paperwork I'm supposed to have was pretty difficult.”
After navigating entry into Germany, she quickly realised that living on SOFA status alone was not a viable option for her. Lacking the freedom to move that a Schengen visa granted, Lodemé felt as if she were effectively trapped in Germany.
“It didn't allow me to travel outside of Germany, which is a huge drawback. A lot of people love coming to Germany and being stationed here because of the ability to travel [around Europe],” she said.
Even travelling home and back felt precarious: “I just have this little SOFA card. It's not in my passport…it looks really like nothing official. There were two times in South Africa when they didn't want to let me on the aeroplane…”
Making the issue more urgent, Lodemé and her husband had settled in Trier, which is near to Germany's western border with Luxembourg. She said she felt uneasy when she witnessed border checks on buses around her new hometown.
Eventually Lodemé decided she needed a visa to secure her ability to travel while living in Germany.
Lodemé Pendergraph enjoys a beer on the Mosel in Trier. Photo provided by Lodemé Pendergraph.
Information void
But, for family members of US military personnel, this is where the real bureaucratic challenges begin.
Having spoken to other South Africans in Germany, Lodemé was advised to pursue a residence permit in the same way other foreign residents would, i.e. registering her address, filling out an application and applying at the local foreigner’s office (Ausländerbehörde).
READ ALSO: Which residence permits qualify you for German citizenship?
“When I did all of that, the officer at the Ausländerbehörde just refused,” Lodemé told The Local. “They told me, ‘No, we don't know anything about that’.”
She added that one officer seemed willing to help, but didn’t know anything about visa eligibility for military spouses whereas another officer seemed to know something about the process but wasn’t being helpful.
“It was a very difficult situation to navigate, because the [US] base says, ‘Oh, we don't know,’ and the Ausländerbehörde says, ‘We don't know.’ So there's no one to ask,” she said. “Everyone is just like, ‘Someone else will deal with it,' and the person who ends up dealing with it is the immigrant.”
Social media resources
Having hit a dead-end with the official channels, Lodemé said she had a breakthrough when she found some crucial information on a Facebook group.
“Luckily there is a foreign spouse network for exactly this reason,” she said, adding that for people in this unique position, the Facebook Foreign Spouse Network is an invaluable resource.
“They have the recent information, they're willing to help out, they send you the links, the form numbers, everything… If it wasn't for that connection, I don't know if I would have had the motivation to continue fighting for this.”
Lodemé and her husband moved to Germany last October. She made her first attempt to get a residence permit a few weeks later, and finally received her permit in May, so the entire process took around seven months in total.
READ ALSO: 'A nightmare' - Lives of foreigners across Europe hit by residency card delays
She said that she did need a lawyer, which she accessed through an on-base legal services resource, who basically confirmed her right to get a residence permit and highlighted the corresponding information in the legal code and emailed it to her so that she could forward it to the immigration office.
Now Lodemé holds a residence permit tied to her husband’s military orders, which grants her the freedom to live in – and freely travel to and from – Germany so long as her husband is stationed in the country.
"It only took me seven months, multiple visits to the Ausländerbehörde, a bunch of emails and a little cry session," she said.
Lodemé writes about her life in Germany on Substack, you can find her 'Monthly Musings' here.
