The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) will receive new asylum seekers for one night at the Fletcher Hotel De Kempen in Reusel. This concerns a maximum of 68 refugees who sit in a kind of ‘waiting room’ before they can be registered at the asylum center in Budel. It is the only place in our country where asylum seekers will soon be accommodated for one night, before they have been registered.
The refugees arrive from the asylum center in Ter Apel at the end of the afternoon. Due to the large crowds during the registration of refugees at the asylum center in Ter Apel and Budel, they make a stopover for one night at the hotel in Reusel. “The asylum seekers’ center in Budel cannot accommodate asylum seekers who still have to go through the ‘registration street’, which is why this option was chosen,” says a COA spokesperson.
Possibly also status holders in hotel
After the overnight stay, the asylum seekers leave for the so-called registration street at the asylum centre. They are registered there. They are not supposed to return to the hotel after registration. The asylum seekers are then received in another asylum centre.
It is not yet clear when the first asylum seekers will be temporarily accommodated at the hotel. The neighborhood will be updated on September 26, and the city council will discuss it again a week later. It has not been announced how long the hotel will be used as a ‘waiting room’. The municipality is still examining whether status holders can also be accommodated in the hotel.
Only short shelter
Fletcher Hotel de Kempen registered itself as a shelter after a call from the COA to hotels to make rooms available. It will soon be the only place in the Netherlands where asylum seekers are received in a kind of ‘waiting room’ before they have reported to the registration street. According to a spokesperson, a hotel in Berkel-Enschot was previously used as an overflow location for asylum seekers who were not yet registered.
The Netherlands has two asylum seeker centers with a registration street where new asylum seekers can be registered: Ter Apel and Budel. The pressure on both asylum seekers’ centers has been high for some time.