What is the problem in Budel?
A relatively small group of asylum seekers causes a disproportionate amount of nuisance, both inside and outside the asylum seekers’ center. It is mainly asylum seekers from Morocco and to a lesser extent Tunisia without a chance of a residence permit who are involved in physical violence and other incidents. Unlike ‘promising’ asylum seekers, such as refugee Syrians, they have nothing to lose.
Until the end of last year, a pilot was running in Budel and Ter Apel with a sober reception of ‘safe migrants’. But at the beginning of this month, State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum and Migration) had to go to Budel for an emergency meeting after a wave of violence. He called it ‘completely ridiculous’ at Omroep Brabant that the police had to act two hundred times in three months at the asylum seekers’ center in Budel, partly because of several stabbing incidents. The consultations led to extra security measures, such as more police checks and the installation of a fence around the site. Yet it went wrong again on Sunday evening, when a 24-year-old man was stabbed in the leg during a fight. A 19-year-old man has been arrested.
Elsewhere, the safelanders also cause nuisance. This is evident from theIncident overview 2020′ from the Ministry of Justice and Security that 53 percent of Moroccans and 53 percent of Tunisians have caused an incident in an asylum seekers center. This concerns a variety of incidents, from physical violence to smoking in the room or violation of other house rules.
What are Safelanders?
Safelanders are asylum seekers from countries that are considered ‘safe’ by the Netherlands, so that their asylum application has virtually no chance in advance. Only a very limited group, such as Moroccan Rif activists or LGBTI people, has a chance of being recognized as refugees. But most asylum seekers from these North African countries are not interested in a residence permit. They mainly look for a temporary stay in the asylum seekers’ centres, with a bed, food and drink and ‘living money’, because the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) is legally obliged to receive every asylum seeker. To prevent abuse, the Netherlands processes asylum applications from safe countries in an accelerated procedure. In practice this means within six to nine weeks.
Many North African ‘asylum hoppers’ appear to have pulled the same trick in another EU country. Upon arrival in the Netherlands, they receive a so-called ‘Dublin indication’: their asylum application will not even be processed and they must be sent back as soon as possible to the EU member state where they previously applied for asylum. But those negotiations with the other Member States about taking back asylum seekers can take many months, so that hopeless asylum seekers can stay in an asylum seekers’ center for up to six months. Refugee Work Netherlands therefore argues in favor of no longer imposing Dublin claims on safe-landers, because that procedure asylum hoppers ‘extra attractive’ to find temporary shelter in the Netherlands.
How many safe havens are there in an asylum seekers’ center?
About a thousand, according to the COA. According to the latest figures, 910 asylum seekers came from safe countries in December, about 2.5 percent of the total number of asylum seekers. Of these, 380 (more than 40 percent) came from Morocco and 140 (15 percent) from Tunisia. COA and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have also received alarming signals that a growing number of Moroccans and Tunisians have been posing as Algerians in recent months, because Algeria has been regarded as an ‘unsafe’ country since the middle of last year. As a result, they can claim the normal asylum procedure as ‘fake Algerians’.
What can the Netherlands do against safe migrants?
Many countries, such as Morocco, do not take back safelanders. As long as a return is not possible, the Netherlands cannot place asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies in detention. Moreover, it is not always possible to establish their identity, because many safelanders deliberately withhold it.
“Many go to court to maximize their stay,” says asylum and migration lawyer Flip Schüller. ‘After that they disappear from the shelter and they go to the next country or they disappear into the illegal circuit.’
According to the COA, the trial with the sober reception was successful, because many safe residents experienced the regime as ‘unpleasant’ and left the asylum seekers’ center. But because of the nuisance, no municipality subsequently showed its willingness to cooperate in the more austere reception of safe migrants, as a result of which the trial has now been discontinued.
What now?
The safe havens in Budel and Ter Apel are or are now again spread out more over the regular asylum seekers’ centres, where they can make well-meaning asylum seekers feel unsafe. The hopeless asylum seekers are not just a Dutch problem. For example, during New Year’s Eve in 2015 in Cologne, the attackers also consisted mainly of Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians, the report said. Süddeutsche Zeitung at the time.
At present, European countries are trying to make separate agreements with the countries of origin on the return of safe countries. But diplomatic ties between the Netherlands and Morocco have been bad for some time. The then State Secretary Ankie Broekers-Knol (Justice and Security) traveled to Morocco in 2019 for a conversation about Moroccan asylum seekers who had exhausted all legal remedies, but ended up with her tail between her legs when the door to the Moroccan authorities remained closed.
EU President France recently announced that it would finally start working on European return agreements. Rutte IV also wants to focus on European agreements. But these intentions are not new: such plans have previously collapsed because of the conflicting interests of member states.