The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) is unable to structurally reduce the number of asylum seekers in Ter Apel below the agreed two thousand. The COA confirmed this on Monday morning. By exceeding the limit, COA is acting in violation of a court ruling. From Tuesday, it must pay a penalty of 15,000 euros to Ter Apel for every day that the asylum seeker center is too full, up to a maximum of 1.5 million euros.
The judge imposed the penalty on January 23. For months now, since the autumn, more people have been staying at the asylum seeker center than agreed in the administrative agreement. The numbers have also been regularly exceeded in recent years. According to the East Groningen municipality of Westerwolde, where Ter Apel is located, discussions did not change the situation. The municipality therefore filed summary proceedings. In the Groningen court, the municipality of Westerwolde argued that the large numbers of people create unsafe situations at the asylum seeker center and in the village. The judge gave COA a month to get things in order, on the order of the penalty, which would take effect on February 20.
Rising orange line
It is not surprising to anyone that hardly anything has changed in the situation at the asylum seeker center since the ruling. The occupancy graph of the center is also displayed every day at the Westerwolde town hall, the spokesperson says. The orange line of the occupation has been consistently rising well above the grim red dotted line of two thousand for months. “We have not yet had fewer than 2,150” people since the ruling, a spokesperson said. For the 15,000 euros that the COA now has to pay daily in penalty payments, she says, “they would be better off renting hotel rooms for asylum seekers.” According to the spokesperson, the municipality has “not thought about” what it will do with the money. “That’s not what we’re about.”
The COA is really doing its best to relieve the pressure on Ter Apel, a COA spokesperson reiterates. For example, in recent weeks it tried in vain to convince municipalities with unused space at their asylum seeker centers to temporarily place more asylum seekers. “To save time.” COA is dependent on municipalities to create more reception places, the spokesperson emphasizes once again, and many municipalities do not receive asylum seekers at all. Even if we manage to get the numbers in order in Ter Apel one day, says the COA spokesperson, “we don’t have to cheer.” Because “it will be tomorrow again”.
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‘Clinging’ call
The solution to the reception problems still seems far away. The COA expects that the recently adopted dispersal law, which obliges municipalities to cooperate in receiving asylum seekers, will only provide relief from next year. Outgoing State Secretary Van der Burg (Asylum and Migration, VVD) made his umpteenth ‘urgent’ call last week to create additional shelter places. This time, 5,500 additional places are needed within three to five weeks. After the cabinet meeting last Friday, Van der Burg said that not a single municipality has yet reported.
Several large locations will also close in the near future, such as Biddinghuizen, where a thousand asylum seekers are currently staying.
COA currently accommodates more than 66,000 people. Almost half of them do not live in an asylum seeker center but in an emergency reception location: hotel rooms, gymnasiums, event halls, boats. The quality of those places is not only worse, emergency shelter is also twice as expensive. The asylum budget for this year is already too tight, as was announced last month: at least half a billion euros still need to be added, out of a total budget of more than 4 billion.
“We let people in at night, even if there were already 2,000 people, so as not to let them sleep outside,” COA director Milo Schoenmaker said last month after the ruling. “Now we have to look at the choice: pay a fine or let people sleep outside.” When asked, the COA spokesperson now says ‘there is no choice’. “We don’t leave people outside.”