More status holders stayed in Dutch reception centers this summer than at the height of the asylum crisis in 2015, according to figures from the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). The number of people applying for asylum in the Netherlands has also not been that high since that time.
Reception in the Netherlands faces enormous problems. As a result, in recent months, hundreds of people have sometimes slept outside the grounds of the application center and reception center Ter Apel.
An analysis of figures from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) and the COA illustrates once again that this is a structural and many-headed problem. The asylum system suffers from a combination of fundamental problems in policy, organization and financing, exacerbated by a tight labor market, unpredictable refugee numbers from conflict zones, a structural increase in refugees worldwide, the aftermath of a pandemic, and a housing problem.
At the same time, acceptance of asylum reception in society also appears to be declining. The biggest losers: those seeking a better life.
1. Influx of asylum seekers
The number of asylum applications submitted in the Netherlands rose sharply in the second half of 2021. This is not only a correction because refugees could not travel before due to corona. It is also due to the many applications from Afghans who fled their country as a result of the rapid and violent change of power in Kabul last year. People from Yemen, Iraq and Turkey also submitted an asylum application relatively often in 2021.
After a dip in January and February, the number of asylum applications is now on the rise again. In July the IND already wrote more than 31,000 applications are expected this year, the highest number in seven years. Ukrainians have not yet been included, because they are provisionally exempted from applying for asylum.
The number of relatives (family members who later travel to the Netherlands) is also higher than during and just before the pandemic. According to the IND, this is logical: relatively many asylum seekers come from countries with a high acceptance rate. In addition to more requests granted, this means that there are also more requests for family reunification. After all, the applicant must first have asylum status before he or she can apply for family reunification.
Comparisons of the current situation with the large influx of asylum applications around 2015/2016 are obvious. As a result of the civil war that started in Syria in 2011, many tens of thousands of refugees came to Europe in the years that followed.
However, the number of asylum applications submitted was extremely high at the time: at its peak, November 2015, the IND received about ten thousand asylum applications – a multiple of the number received by the IND recently.
As far as the current influx is concerned, a situation as during the previous refugee crisis is therefore out of the question. In the whole of 2015, almost twice as many requests were received (more than 45,000) than last year. However, the Dutch asylum figures, together with expectations about the worldwide number of refugees, indicate that the number of asylum applications is growing steadily.
2. Pending requests
However, the number of requests that the IND is currently processing changes the picture drastically. In the meantime, almost as many asylum applications have accumulated as at the peak in 2015/2016. From an administrative point of view, the current problem is therefore somewhat comparable to the previous crisis.
A big difference is that the peak lasted only about a year and a half. At the time, the thousands of asylum applications from Syrian refugees were processed relatively quickly because the files were not very complicated and this group of people quickly obtained a residence permit.
Now the IND is faced with a structural problem that clearly began to manifest itself around 2018. For years, the service has struggled to find hearing and decision officers who investigate and process new asylum applications. Not unique, by the way – the shortage on the labor market can already be felt in many sectors.
In addition, if the influx of applications increases or decreases, the IND also has to scale up and down the staff. Government funding also depends on this.
However, according to the IND, this makes it difficult to retain or quickly hire employees if it is necessary to scale up.
In addition, the complexity of the work increases, according to the service, because more and more care is expected of the assessments ‘from society, the judiciary and policy’. Handling files takes more time and training new employees takes longer.
As a result, asylum applicants have to wait longer for the decision of the IND. And the aftermath of the corona pandemic is exacerbating this: in 2021 the average waiting time for most asylum seekers was no less than 59 weeks at its peak.
Although the waiting time is no longer so extremely long, the high influx since last year does ensure that more requests remain on the shelf and the waiting time will increase again.
3. Assylum
The accumulation of asylum applications at the IND is also one of the causes of the full reception centers, especially the application center in Ter Apel. Applicants must stay longer in an asylum seekers’ center pending the granting (or rejection) of a residence permit.
The COA received some 44,000 refugees in August – almost the level of 2015.
The reception is also organized according to a flexible scaling up and down system. Without a buffer, this will lead to shortages when more people register again, Leiden professor of asylum law Peter Rodrigues said last month. NRC.
The reception figures also show the problem of housing for status holders. Since 2019, the number of people who already have a residence permit in the reception centers has been growing. Although it is the intention that a status holder will move from the center within ten weeks of obtaining a permit, it is becoming increasingly difficult to provide this group with a home. In fact, even in 2015, there were not as many status holders in Dutch reception centers as this summer (16.5 thousand in August).
In an attempt to slow down the influx of newcomers to the Netherlands, the cabinet last month known, among other things, that it wants to limit family reunification. At the moment, almost half of the status holders in asylum seekers’ centers are family members. Family relatives do not have to go through a separate asylum process (although a shorter IND investigation), but will also stay in COA centers after arrival in the Netherlands until they are given a home.
In the new proposal, however, a request for family reunification will only be processed if the beneficiary who makes the request has been given a home – and not if he or she is still staying in a reception centre. As a result, it may take longer before family members can come to the Netherlands.
Experts warned in NRC Moreover, suspending family reunification for refugees until the end of 2023 is not legally feasible. According to them, the measure is in conflict with the European treaties also signed by the Netherlands.