European countries hope to finally get a grip on sending back rejected asylum seekers with a new return policy. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), that plan is deficient in important respects. In a report, the service warns that the European Return Regulation in the Netherlands is partly impracticable, or could even be counterproductive.
The regulation regulates the return of deported asylum seekers, which according to many Member States is a persistent problem in European asylum policy. About four in five rejected asylum seekers do not leave the EU because they do not cooperate with their departure or countries of origin refuse to take them back. New return rules are intended to change this, but according to the IND and other government organizations such as the immigration police, the proposal misses the mark on several points.
According to the IND, one of the bottlenecks is the introduction of a test to determine whether the asylum seeker who is being deported is not in danger in the country of origin. This is already being examined in the asylum procedure, but in the European proposal it must be assessed again when return is an issue. The IND warns that the police or military police cannot make this assessment because they lack the “knowledge and skills”. If the IND has to do it itself, this will lead to a large additional workload. There is a risk that deportations will turn into disguised new asylum procedures, resulting in deported asylum seekers staying longer.
Judges
Another part of the plan, which gives an alien to be deported two weeks to appeal, also raises objections. The IND and the police fear that the migrant will use that time to disappear or initiate new proceedings. This makes it more difficult to deport people, while the aim is to accelerate returns.
There is a risk that deportations will turn into disguised new asylum procedures, so that deported asylum seekers will stay longer
This part of the proposal requires something far-reaching from judges: they will soon have to decide within 48 hours on a request for a provisional injunction from a migrant to be deported. “Case law indicates that the term is difficult or impossible to enforce,” the report says.
A much-discussed element is the obligation for EU countries to adopt each other’s return decisions. If one country refuses an asylum seeker, the other country must do the same. This is to prevent rejected asylum seekers from applying for asylum again in another country. The IND predicts that Dutch judges will not easily be satisfied with a return decision taken in another Member State and will still want to assess whether the decision meets Dutch requirements. Member states will also have to exchange asylum files with each other, but it is unclear whether this is allowed and whether this will lead to delays. Ultimately, according to the IND, it will be faster to make a new decision yourself than to base it on the outcome of a procedure in another Member State.
All these objections mean that asylum seekers may soon stay in reception longer, the IND outlines, “and therefore [leidt] to an increase in the number of required reception places.” The service advocates adjusting the proposal during the ongoing negotiations in Brussels, to prevent European return rules from being introduced that “do not help an effective return process.”
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