“The Immigration Office will do everything in its power to deport undocumented drug dealers from the country,” says De Moor. Through a collaboration between the Immigration Department (DVZ) and the police, she wants to put an end to the nuisance in the Brussels South police zone.
De Moor himself cites the example of the Anderlecht social housing estate Peterbos. The Brussels social housing company Anderlechtse Haard complained in a letter last week, among other things, about the roadblocks in Peterbos. These were erected by masked drug dealers, who search people before they are allowed to enter the neighborhood. Sint-Gillis, where a man was shot dead in the vicinity of Jacques Franckplein on Wednesday, also falls under the Brussels-South police zone.
Limited number of places
In concrete terms, the local police will report people without papers to the Immigration Department, which can then reserve a place in a closed center. From there they can be sent back to their country of origin. “The police make their own assessments on the ground about where the need is greatest,” says Sieghild Lacoere, spokesperson for De Moor. According to her, the actions should not be limited to Peterbos, but can take place throughout the police zone.
The number of places in the closed centers is limited. Won’t capacity come under even more pressure? “In practice, this concerns a few places out of a total capacity of 751,” says Pauline Blondeel, spokeswoman for the Immigration Department.
A similar collaboration is already underway between the DVZ and the Brussels Capital–Ixelles police zone. Since the start of the collaboration in 2020, 109 people have been arrested there, 67 of whom were actually sent back, says Lacoere. Some of them are still in a closed centre. The Immigration Department has a maximum period of eight months to return people to their country of origin. It is not known how many of them had to be released again, because that period had expired or because they were released after a trial.
Difficult collaboration
Moreover, cooperation with some countries is very difficult. If the police identify specific people, the Immigration Department can better prepare their return. For example, the police can already trace their country of origin and arrange the necessary travel documents. She then immediately has the guarantee that the arrested dealers will not be released again the next day, according to De Moor. Although the State Secretary also admits here that “everything stands or falls with cooperation with the countries of origin”.
“If we know in advance that it will be impossible to send someone back, we pass this on to the police,” says Blondeel. It is unclear how many people are arrested in this way.
But other police zones also suffer from nuisance. In Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, people were injured in a shooting in April and October, and in Sint-Joost-ten-Noode people were injured in a stabbing. Why is the campaign not rolled out across the entire Brussels territory? “The intention is for this to be a targeted action. Then you cannot involve the entire territory,” says Lacoere. She also points out that actions are also being taken at, among other things, the North Station.
