Adopted daughter of Swiss Abroad faces deportation from Switzerland

Gabriela Purtschert has been told to leave Switzerland, even though she has been in the country longer than some of her relatives. Facebook Gabriela Purtschert

Gabriela Purtschert grew up in Ecuador, with Swiss values, Swiss cheese and a longing to study in Switzerland one day. Today, after 16 years in Switzerland, she is to be deported. Because she lacks what many of her relatives have: a red passport.

From the outside, everything looks like a classic Swiss career: federal school-leaving certificate, degree, doctorate. A sought-after employee in times of skills shortages. But now Purtschert, 36, is about to be deported – even though she has lived in Switzerland longer than many of her relatives with a Swiss passport.

That it could come to this is due to a peculiarity of her background – and a crucial legal detail. The origin of this story leads to Pfaffnau in canton Lucerne, a village on the border with cantons Bern and Aargau with surprisingly many connections to South America.

Pfaffnau is the Heimatort, place of origin, to an estimated 100 Swiss emigrants in Ecuador, including the family of Purtschert’s adoptive father. Purtschert herself is registered in the civil register as the daughter of a Swiss man and a Swiss woman. However, unlike her younger brothers, the Heimatort box is empty, as she kept her Ecuadorian citizenship.

Adopted by a Swiss Abroad

Purtschert was born in Ecuador to a Colombian mother and an Ecuadorian father. Her mother (who later became Swiss) got together with Swiss Abroad Norberto Purtschert when Gabriela was two. Her mother and Norberto married when Gabriela was six. Norberto Purtschert then adopted her when she was a teenager.

Gabriela Purtschert with her parents and siblings in 1997 in Caranqui, Ecuador. Courtesy image

As the adopted daughter of a Swiss Abroad in Ecuador, she was not entitled to Swiss citizenship at the time of adoption. What’s more, the adoption didn’t become legally binding until she came of age. For this reason, Swiss citizenship was not transferred to her.

Norberto Purtschert was the managing director of an Ecuadorian cheese manufacturer; he is still on the board of directors today. “My grandfather [Oskar Purtschert] emigrated in 1949 to produce and sell cheese in South America,” she says.

Purtschert spent her entire childhood with her adoptive father. Although Purtschert does not have Swiss citizenship, she grew up in Ecuador with Swiss values and traditions. She realised early on that she wanted to study in Switzerland one day.

At 16, she spent a month in Switzerland for the first time – a stay that only strengthened her desire. The family business, which bears the name of a traditional Swiss brand, has always supported all of the family’s descendants financially if they wanted to spend a year in Switzerland. Purtschert was also to benefit from this family scholarship, just like her cousins before her.

At the golden wedding anniversary of grandparents Hedwig and Oskar Purtschert in 1999. Gabriela Purtschert is standing in the back row, second from right. Courtesy image

Studying in Switzerland

“It was always clear to me: if I got this opportunity, I wanted to take it,” Purtschert says. Because she didn’t have Swiss citizenship, it wasn’t possible for her – unlike her brothers or cousins – to do an apprenticeship in Switzerland. Studying, on the other hand, was possible.

Aged 18, she went to Germany for a year as an au pair to learn German. She then studied in Fribourg, obtained her federal baccalaureate and completed a bachelor’s degree in biology and environmental sciences at the University of Zurich.

She then went on to complete a Master’s degree in microbiology and a doctorate. A total of 11 years of training – highly specialised and ideally qualified to work in Switzerland.

Purtschert has now lived in Switzerland for 16 years and speaks fluent Swiss German. “I spent my most formative years as an adult here,” she says. She has built her life here, made friends, worked and even her two younger brothers live in Switzerland.

Not sufficiently integrated after 16 years

But now she has to leave Switzerland. “As a student from a third country, I only had a residence permit for the purpose of education,” she explains. The migration office of canton Zurich writes that “people with such a residence status are aware from the outset that they have to leave Switzerland once they have fulfilled the purpose of their stay”.

However, thanks to her position as a research assistant at Agroscope, the federal centre of excellence for research in the agriculture and food sector, Purtschert was granted a further residence permit after completing her studies. However, because this employment contract with the Swiss state was limited until the end of January 2025, her “purpose of residence no longer applies”, according to the decision of the migration office, which has been seen by Swissinfo.

She then applied to the Zurich cantonal migration office to extend her residence permit. In vain. “My residence and work permit was not extended in mid-August,” Purtschert says. She was asked to leave Switzerland by mid-October.

Gabriela Purtschert. Courtesy image

According to the letter from the migration office, there had been no particularly close or demonstrably deeper integration in the past 16 years. There is an “important public interest in effectively limiting the number of foreign residents”, the office continued.

Without a job, no right to live in Switzerland. But according to Purtschert’s lawyer, this should not be the case. “Unemployment can happen to anyone,” the lawyer told Swissinfo.

The withdrawal of her work permit has also made it more difficult for Purtschert to find a job. “I usually have no chance at all to explain my situation in the application process,” she says. Together with her lawyer, she has lodged an appeal against the decision.

A romanticised image of Switzerland

Purtschert’s father in Ecuador no longer understands the world. Speaking little German and having never lived in Switzerland, he has a romanticised image of the country from his visits to Switzerland. For him, everything is always going well in Switzerland.

“I always have to tell him that things aren’t going well for his daughter at the moment,” says Purtschert with tears in her eyes. She says the situation is stressful.

Purtschert wants to stay in Switzerland, continue to shape her future here and “give something back to Switzerland”. “I have to leave Switzerland, even though I’ve lived here longer than my brothers with Swiss passports,” she says.

At the moment, she can’t imagine a life in Ecuador. If she were to go back, “then that would be my own decision”, she says.

The decision to deport her is not yet final, which gives Purtschert a little time. She is currently completing an internship in the food industry, at a company that produces a vegan version of a traditional Swiss biscuit. Purtschert is an expert in plant-based foods. The work experience should help her find a new job – and prevent her deportation.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl. Adapted from German by DeepL/ts