Cabinet to appeal critical court ruling about asylum seeker treatment

State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum Affairs) will appeal against the judge's ruling on the living conditions in the asylum reception. The court ruled on Thursday that the government does not meet the European standards that apply to humane reception.

Van der Burg agrees with "the main message," namely that the level of reception must be raised. According to him, the problems mainly arise in crisis emergency shelters.

According to the minister, the judge has sentenced the Cabinet to something that the Cabinet cannot deliver. That's why he wants a verdict from a higher court.

"If you can choose between nothing or crisis shelter, then crisis emergency shelter is better," said the State Secretary. Even now that there is a court ruling, it is impossible, according to him, to quickly convert all crisis shelters and crisis emergency shelters into regular asylum seekers' places, "because you just need other accommodations for that."

The State Secretary fears that it may take a long time before all asylum seekers from crisis emergency shelters are accommodated elsewhere. "Even if municipalities promise asylum seekers places, it will take weeks or months before they are there."

For Van der Burg, the execution of the judge's judgment is not so much a matter for discussion, but rather the term within which measures must be taken. He mentions as an example that foreign minors (UAMs) must have another reception place within five days. "We depend on municipalities to deliver houses for that," said the state secretary. "That is complicated, but it does mean that we cannot reduce the number of children in Ter Apel from 350 to 55 within a few days."

The judgment must be enforced, even if an appeal has been lodged. The minister has already started working on the ruling, he emphasized. For example, a few hours after the judge's ruling on Thursday, he called on all municipalities to arrange 1,700 extra reception places for underage asylum seekers before Jan. 1.

On Thursday, the judge ruled, among other things, that vulnerable asylum seekers, such as children younger than one year and their family members and unaccompanied minor foreign nationals, may no longer be placed in crisis emergency shelters with immediate effect. Anyone who reports to Ter Apel or another center to register as an asylum seeker must immediately be able to obtain a safe covered sleeping place, food, water and access to hygienic sanitary facilities.