Thanks to the opening of the emergency shelter in Biddinghuizen, there are expected to be enough shelters this week to accommodate all new asylum seekers in our country. This is reported by the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA).
For example, 150 asylum seekers, who spent the night in the Hanze Plaza conference center in Groningen on Friday and Saturday, were transferred to Biddinghuizen on Sunday. This once again prevented asylum seekers from having to spend the night outside the gate of the registration center in Ter Apel. This threatened to happen a few weeks ago.
Despite the new emergency shelters in Biddinghuizen, the need remains high for the COA. The central government announces weekly how high the asylum influx was the week before. Last week, 1,400 refugees entered our country. That is the highest number since the beginning of this year.
The asylum system in our country has been creaking at the seams in recent years, because a number of provinces and municipalities do not provide any or insufficient shelter places. Last summer it regularly happened that hundreds of asylum seekers in Ter Apel had to sleep outside because there was no room for them in the registration center.
The hope of the State Secretary – and the COA – is based on the introduction of the Spread Act. This means that municipalities can, if necessary, be forced to cooperate in the reception of asylum seekers. This law was recently adopted by the House of Representatives, but the Senate must also agree. And it doesn’t look like that at the moment. It will probably take months before it becomes clear whether the law will pass.