Tomorrow State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum) will hold an emergency meeting with mayors Hubert Bruls and Koen Schuiling about large-scale locations where asylum seekers can be accommodated. Such large reception locations should preferably come this week, if necessary with “very unpleasant directives”.
That was agreed today during a meeting of the minister with the Security Council of the 25 mayors who chair a security region, says council chairman Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen.
Bruls joins the emergency meeting as chairman of the board. Schuiling is there because, in addition to being mayor of Groningen, he is also chairman of the security region in that province. The central registration location in Ter Apel is part of that security region.
“The way it is now in Ter Apel, it is really no longer possible. The situation is getting more serious by the week. We have to think of something, because this is a hopeless situation,” said Bruls, referring to the increasing numbers of refugees living outside Ter Apel. have to sleep because there is nowhere for them to sleep.
“The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has done its best, but is at the end of its ropes. Municipalities are looking everywhere for crisis emergency shelter, but cannot solve the COA’s problems. And it is not a task of the municipalities either. The government cannot commit looting of municipalities,” says the council chairman.
The Security Council believes that the government still does not have the refugee reception in order structurally. There is no long-term vision. The council made it clear to Van der Burg once again today that the extra efforts of the security regions and the municipalities will come to an end on 1 October.
Until then, each region will provide 225 extra crisis emergency shelters and the housing of status holders will be speeded up. “After that, the government really has to come up with other solutions,” says Bruls. The Security Council will send a letter about this to the cabinet on Tuesday.