Although the government will spend a total of 8.7 billion euros extra on asylum in the coming years, there is no money left over for the reception of people who are staying illegally in our country. Municipalities are angry.
This is evident from a letter that the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG) sent to the affiliated municipalities on Thursday. It concerns shelter that became known as bed, bath, bread. The Rutte II cabinet almost fell in 2015 on the question of what to do with asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies: the VVD wanted to make illegality a criminal offence, while the PvdA wanted to take care of this group of people. The compromise between VVD and PvdA was a pilot with austere reception in five municipalities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Groningen and Eindhoven.
In the coalition agreement, the current cabinet agreed in 2022 that this reception should be expanded to ‘a nationwide network’, whereby the reception is ‘always aimed at returning’ the rejected asylum seeker to the country of origin. With such a national network, independent municipal shelters would be ‘no longer necessary’, the coalition parties argued, and would also ‘no longer be financed’.
That is precisely why the VNG calls it ‘unacceptable’ that no money has been made available in the Spring Memorandum for the National Immigration Facilities (LVV), as the reception of asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies is formally called. ‘Municipalities should not be burdened with the public order and health problems of this group,’ writes VNG director Leonard Geluk. Now municipalities are at risk of having to foot the bill.
Rising costs
The costs of sheltering asylum seekers are rising rapidly, mainly because there are not enough asylum seekers’ centers (AZCs) and the number of asylum seekers coming to our country is rising. The emergency shelters that are now being hurriedly set up cost much more money. At the end of April, the cabinet came up with extra money to cope with the rising costs, a total of 8.7 billion euros over the next four years.
The reception of aliens who have exhausted all legal remedies costs an estimated 23 million euros, but State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD) reportedly could no longer receive money from Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag. Choices had to be made, say insiders at the Ministry of Justice and Security.
For 2022 and this year, according to sources, no separate budget was made available for the National Immigration Facilities. At that time, Van der Burg was still able to collect the money within Justice and Security’s own budget.
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