Accommodating asylum seekers on cruise ships and even considering floating these ships at sea. The asylum reception in the Netherlands is a mess and the entire chain has come to a standstill. In the application center in Ter Apel, the situation is becoming increasingly dire. In May it was still big news when asylum seekers threatened to have to sleep outside for the first time. This past week has been no exception.
A Syrian girl of about four years old is sleeping on the lawn in front of the registration center on Thursday at the beginning of the evening. Her brothers and parents are sitting around her. They have no idea where they are going to spend the night.
In addition to the Syrian family, about forty refugees still do not know where they can sleep. They are sitting on the grass under a large tent. There are some sanitary facilities at the edge of the field and the refugees cannot do more than wait. Wait until it is their turn to be registered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND).
Sometimes the situation is so dire that eventually there is no place for those waiting, so they have to sleep on the field. Last weekend there were 300 people, the largest number to date. In the nights that followed, people lay outside on the grass, although asylum seekers sometimes choose this themselves. They hope that this will allow them to go through the registration procedure sooner.
Security regions are done with it
It has been extremely busy in Ter Apel for almost a year, because the asylum seekers centers in the Netherlands are also full. Status holders occupy more than a third of the beds. Due to the housing shortage, they cannot move out.
In addition, after two corona years, more asylum seekers are coming to the Netherlands now that there are no more travel restrictions. In addition, many Afghans have fled here. The number of new asylum seekers is still much smaller than during the refugee crisis in 2015.
State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum) has been looking for new locations for months, but this is anything but smooth. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) and the cabinet prefer large locations, municipalities see more in small-scale reception.
The security regions have therefore been assisting for months. Thousands of asylum seekers are staying in crisis emergency shelters, but if it is up to the mayors, this will come to an end on 1 October. They demand a structural solution from the cabinet.
Asylum seekers leave by bus from Ter Apel to an emergency reception location in the country.
Asylum seekers leave by bus from Ter Apel to an emergency reception location in the country. Photo: Job of the Duty
Some municipalities only want to receive Ukrainians
However, a structural solution is still miles away. “We have to row with the belts we have,” said Van der Burg this week after the crisis meeting. He is working on a law to oblige municipalities to receive asylum seekers, but that law will not be ready until next year at the earliest. Moreover, it should become clear this autumn whether there is sufficient support for it in parliament.
Until then, the cabinet is dependent on the willingness of municipalities. The government is hesitant to lose support and therefore prefers not to use coercion. As a result, there are municipalities that do cooperate and municipalities that do not. An example is the distinction made by some municipalities between asylum seekers and Ukrainian refugees.
At the moment there are still more than four thousand unsleeping beds intended for Ukrainians. The cabinet has already looked into whether regular asylum seekers can be placed here, but has now accepted that some municipalities prefer to receive only Ukrainians. Van der Burg is now going to see if they can divide the two groups of refugees in such a way that all beds are used.
The Netherlands Council for Refugees reacted with dismay to this proposal. “We are dumbfounded about normalizing this distinction.”
There are no more unthinkable solutions for the cabinet
It is not the only thing that the Council for Refugees reacted with shock to. The cabinet has been planning to receive large groups of asylum seekers on cruise ships for some time, but has so far only found one municipality where such a ship is allowed to dock.
The cabinet is even having investigations into whether the ships can continue to float at sea. The State Secretary added that this is very complicated, because you lock people up on a ship, as it were. “An absurd idea,” said the Council for Refugees. It shows that the mess is so great that the cabinet is also considering unorthodox solutions.
Ter Apel remains the bottleneck of the asylum shelter
The situation in Ter Apel will not change quickly, unless municipalities move forward with the accelerated housing of status holders. A second registration center can also provide relief, but this too cannot be arranged overnight. A location has to be added in the Noordoostpolder, but asylum seekers can only go here by appointment.
As long as Ter Apel is the only place where they can walk in without an appointment, it will remain the bottleneck of the asylum shelter. Van der Burg expects it to remain busy for weeks to come and it will be a challenge every evening to find a place to sleep for everyone.
At least that was successful for the Syrian family on Thursday. They were able to spend the night with a roof over their heads and were taken by bus to a crisis emergency shelter elsewhere in the country on Friday morning.