Refugees' family to Netherlands forces immigration staffing boost

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) will employ 100 extra staff members in the coming period to deal with the number of applications from relatives of refugees in the Netherlands, IND chief executive Rob van Lint announced today.

Van Lint points out that the Netherlands has seen an increasing number of requests from family members of asylum seekers, especially Syrian asylum seekers, who have received a residence permit in the Netherlands last year. These family members can submit an application to come to the Netherlands within three months after their mother or father received a residence permit.

Approximately 700 of these applications are currently received every week. This significant increase in applications has lead to 12 thousand cases currently waiting to be processed. The IND expects that the staff increase will decrease the waiting times for these applications over the course of this year.