The special austere reception for asylum seekers from safe countries may disappear. The two municipalities where they are currently being accommodated want to close their locations at the end of the year and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers has not yet found a new location.
The extra frugal reception is there to discourage asylum seekers from safe countries from staying here. In the past twelve months, for example, some 900 Moroccans have applied for asylum in the Netherlands. They hardly stand a chance of a residence permit and display more criminal behavior than other asylum seekers.
After much effort, COA was able to persuade two municipalities to receive a maximum of 210 ‘safe immigrants’ last year: Budel and Ter Apel. They wanted to accommodate a small part of the total number of people. The rest was divided among all asylum seekers’ centers. Now that the experiments are coming to an end at the end of this year, Budel and Ter Apel want to get rid of them. It is now the turn of other municipalities, they believe.
Not dissatisfied
The COA has been trying in vain since December 2019 to find another municipality that wants to receive these asylum seekers with little chance of a residence status separately, according to documents that RTV Noord and the NOS have requested invoking the Government Information (Public Access) Act.
Ter Apel and Budel are the places that already receive the most asylum seekers. In Ter Apel, a village of 8000 inhabitants, 2000 asylum seekers reside. The application center is also located there, the first counter where an asylum seeker who arrives in the Netherlands must report. Residents and shopkeepers have been complaining about nuisance and shoplifting for years. About 8,000 people also live in Budel. 1500 asylum seekers are received there. There are also many complaints there.
Herma Hemmen, CDA councilor in Ter Apel, lives near the reception centre. According to her, it is good to notice that more asylum seekers are coming to the Netherlands. “You also see the number of nuisance causes from safe countries increasing again.” She wants the frugal reception for these people to end.
Yet Hemmen is not dissatisfied with the pilot. “In itself we are quite satisfied with the approach. Action is taken quickly, people have to stay indoors. There is more control, also on alcohol consumption,” she says. “But we think it’s time for other municipalities to take responsibility as well.”
Clear language is also coming from Budel: “The pilot will stop after December 31 this year. The cake must be better distributed”, let the municipality know.
Municipalities set conditions
The fear among municipalities of having to receive nuisance-causing asylum seekers has major consequences. It is one of the main reasons why no new asylum seekers’ centers are created.
Municipalities that are prepared to offer emergency shelter or to keep an asylum seekers’ center open longer, impose all kinds of conditions on this. One only wants to receive Afghan evacuees, the other only families of people who already have asylum who are traveling to. Still others only want to receive status holders; they already have a temporary residence permit. And almost all municipalities only cooperate if the reception is only for a few hundred people.
The shortage of new reception centers is becoming more acute now that the number of asylum seekers is increasing again, after the corona lockdowns. In the short term, crisis accommodation in, for example, gymnasiums is imminent, such as during the refugee crisis in 2015. The Afghan interpreters who have been evacuated from Kabul are already being moved from one location to another to make room for new asylum seekers.
The final evaluation of the experiments for ‘safe migrants’ in Budel and Ter Apel would be ready in September, but the Ministry of Justice and Security now says that the outcome is secret.
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