The separate reception of asylum seekers who cause nuisance in Ter Apel and the surrounding area is not on track. The increase in the number of places announced by the Ministry of Justice and Security is far from being achieved.
This concerns the so-called process availability location (PBL), which was opened in the summer last year. The PBL was seen as an answer to the persistent nuisance experienced by both the residents of Ter Apel and neighboring Nieuw-Weerdinge. A group of safelanders has caused great unrest in both places.
At the PBL, people with a disadvantaged asylum application can go through the procedure more quickly. This means that they are no longer allowed to leave the site, meaning that they can no longer roam the streets. That should cause less nuisance in the area. The total group of nuisance perpetrators is estimated at around five hundred.
In September last year, Mayor Eric van Oosterhout of Emmen expressed his disappointment about what he saw as the extremely slow course of events. In November, temporary State Secretary Christophe van der Maat of Asylum Affairs announced that the number of places would be increased to fifty within a few weeks. This would become a hundred in January this year, he wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives.
With the current thirty places for underprivileged asylum seekers in the PBL, the announced numbers will not be achieved by any means. According to a ministry spokesperson, this is due to the enormous crowds at the registration center. “More than two thousand people are still being accommodated in the registration center. As a result, there is not the capacity and space to allow people to move on to the PBL.”
For the time being, little will change. We are waiting for the effect of the much-discussed distribution law. It will take some time before this law reduces the pressure on the registration center.
This week, between 2,100 and 2,200 people will be received at the registration center in Ter Apel, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) reports. The judge ruled last week that this number must be reduced to the agreed two thousand within four weeks.