Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber will come to Nieuw-Weerdinge and Ter Apel on February 6. The municipalities of Emmen and Westerwolde have been insisting on the minister’s arrival in the region for a long time. Both governments want to discuss the persistent nuisance caused by safelanders in both places.
Mayors Eric van Oosterhout (Emmen) and Jaap Velema (Westerwolde) hoped to receive Faber last fall. But that was postponed several times. Contact with the minister is difficult. This does not only apply to these municipalities. According to several media reports, Faber appears to be virtually unreachable. The telephone at her ministry often rings unanswered and emails are not always answered.
In November, both mayors expressed their concerns about the situation in both villages. Burglary, fights, tampering with cars and a big mouth: these are things that residents are confronted with on a regular basis.
According to Mayor Eric van Oosterhout, the municipality of Emmen receives an average of around 700 asylum seekers. “And that causes little to no hassle.” The nuisance mainly lies in a group of 100 to 160 so-called safelanders who move between the station area of Emmen and the registration center in Ter Apel. Safelanders are asylum seekers who have no chance of obtaining a residence permit.
Since 2022, the municipality of Emmen has taken a battery of measures to suppress the nuisance on this route as much as possible. For example, cameras have been installed and street coaches are deployed. Furthermore, the military police patrol extra and a security company keeps an eye on things at night. The costs amount to five thousand euros. In the previous two years, the municipality had to contribute partly to this, but since this year the government has been paying the full price.
Despite everything, according to both mayors, it remains a matter of mopping with the tap open. For example, a decision still needs to be made regarding the distribution law, which was established at the beginning of 2024. The law obliges all municipalities to accept asylum seekers. The idea is that it reduces the pressure and nuisance around Ter Apel.
The current government wants to get rid of that law, but for the time being the law remains in force. “Without that law, the pressure will continue to increase,” said Van Oosterhout.
Another point that will be mentioned during the planned meeting is the re-establishment of the so-called process decision location (pbl). This specially set up department within the asylum seekers’ center in Ter Apel was supposed to help safelanders leave the village more quickly.
After a lawsuit filed by an asylum seeker, it was temporarily closed. For the time being, because Van Oosterhout and Velema would like to see the PBL come into existence in some form, even though it remains difficult to finalize it all legally.
Jaap Velema criticizes the poor flow within the asylum seekers’ center in Ter Apel as another problem. “The process is slowly but surely coming to a standstill,” he said. Status holders (people who have received a residence permit) cannot leave due to a lack of housing.”
As a result, those people are forced to stay in the center. The asylum center is bursting at the seams, although lately it has remained within the maximum number of 2,000 people.
The absence of a political solution means that local politics must continue to muddle through and remain unclear. Velema said during the meeting that he was disappointed in Faber. “She focuses on limiting the influx, but she is also minister of reception. In that respect she is completely inaccessible.”