The Cabinet will not send Afghan guards to the Netherlands after all

The government has decided not to allow a group of perhaps two hundred Afghans who worked for the Netherlands while they were present in Afghanistan, together with their families, to come to the Netherlands. The Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Asylum and Migration wrote this to the House of Representatives.

The previous cabinet had decided to make an “extra effort” to accommodate this “designated group” of Afghan old guards in the Netherlands. The cabinet is reversing that decision, according to the letter to Parliament. The guards were not employed directly by the Dutch government, but were hired through an outside security company.

When the previous cabinet made the decision, at the request of a majority in the House of Representatives, 145 security personnel were involved. Including family members, this amounted to 965 people.

According to the government, the administration of the Ministry of Defense has shown that many more people could be involved: almost a thousand security personnel, who together with their families represent more than 4,500 people. The whereabouts of many of the former guards are unknown. They may already be living in safe countries, the ministers write.

The costs of moving families play a role in the decision, as can be seen from the enclosed documents. Even for the smallest group of two hundred guards and their families, this amounts to more than 30 million euros. The excesses at the Immigration and Naturalization Service also play a role, and according to the cabinet it is difficult to ascertain what danger the old guards still pose under the current Taliban regime.

“The current cabinet therefore makes a different assessment. However, the cabinet continues to monitor distress cases within the existing policy , just like the previous cabinet,” the ministers say. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently has 31 requests from embassy guards and 137 from security guards to qualify for asylum in the Netherlands.

The decision caused angry reactions in the House of Representatives. Initiator Piri, Member of Parliament for GroenLinks-PvdA, says on X: “It is unbelievable and angry that the cabinet refuses to let the last evacuees come over.” thought to be a “debt of honour” because the guards helped Dutch soldiers and diplomats who were risking their own lives.

MP CDA Boswijk also finds it “extremely painful” that the current cabinet is not fulfilling “promises made before”. D66 MP Paternette calls the decision “shameless”. The parties want to discuss the decision next week.