The Dutch Refugee Council will initiate summary proceedings within three weeks against the government and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) in order to enforce a solution to the reception crisis. That leaves the organization on Sunday evening know. The Refugee Agency announced three weeks ago that it would go to court if asylum seekers were not received “in accordance with the minimum requirements” on 1 August. According to the organization, the situation has since “fallen past the humanitarian lower limit”.
Also read this report from a week in Ter Apel
Since the beginning of July, tens to hundreds of asylum seekers have been sleeping outside the gates of the application center in Ter Apel, where there is not enough space, almost every day. Others stay in crisis emergency shelters such as tents and sports halls. Asylum seekers stay in asylum seekers’ centers for months and sometimes years longer because the Immigration Service IND is struggling with major backlogs. Moreover, if she grants a request, they cannot leave: municipalities are making fewer houses available for asylum seekers than agreed.
According to the Dutch Council for Refugees, the government did not care for advice from the Advisory Committee on Immigration Affairs for years, as a result of which the asylum system has “completely stalled”. The organization also speaks of a “lack of perseverance” at the government, which was unable to solve the problems with “non-binding requests” to municipalities to suggest reception locations.
Refugee Work is not only taking the step to court for the refugees who receive reception ‘below the humane limit’, but also for the employees and volunteers who ‘try to make the best of it under impossible circumstances’. Research published last week by NRC it turned out that there are major problems at COA: one in three COA employees in Ter Apel is sick at home and there are a thousand vacancies nationwide.
Also read: The COA is about to collapse