Germany says "no" to asylum seekers sent back from Netherlands

The Netherlands and Germany are clashing about the fate of 900 asylum seekers. The Netherlands wants to send these asylum seekers back to Germany, because that is where they were first registered. But Germany is refusing to take them, AD reports. 

According to the Dublin agreement, the country in which an asylum seeker is first registered is the country which will handle his application. The Netherlands has about 2,000 asylum seekers that was first recorded in Eurodac, a system in which European countries register asylum seekers' fingerprints, in Germany. And the Dutch government wants to send these asylum seekers back to the country.

Since March Germany refused to take back 900 of these asylum seekers, AD reports based on figures received from the Ministry of Security and Justice. According to the Germans, the registration of these 900 peoples' fingerprints does not constitute an official request for protection. "The foreigner is only registered here, for the treatment of the application we have no authority", the German Federal office for Migration and Refugees writes. A spokesperson for the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice told AD that they were "in Eurodac recorded by Germany as an asylum seeker".

In the mean time these asylum seekers are living in uncertainty in an emergency asylum shelter in the Netherlands, with their asylum procedures suffering a months-long delay. "As long as the Netherlands and Germany do not agree, no decision will be made", asylum lawyer Michael Yap explained to the newspaper. His clients can only be moved to a regular asylum center, with better facilities, when their asylum application is being considered. But as long as the two countries are arguing about the matter, they will be stuck in limbo.