Agreements with countries to take back asylum seekers have little effect

Agreements with countries of origin to take back asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies have little to no effect, the WODC - the knowledge institute for the Ministry of Justice and Security - concluded in a study. The findings are remarkable because the Cabinet’s return policy and parliamentarians put a lot of stock in these agreements, the Volkskrant reports.

Failed asylum seekers can’t return to their country of origin if they don’t have the proper papers. The countries of origin have to provide these papers but usually don’t. To improve this process, the Netherlands makes agreements with countries of origin. An increasing number of such agreements are also being made by the EU.

“Previous research has shown that approximately 30 to 40 percent of failed asylum seekers demonstrably return,” Arjen Leerkes, WODC researcher and professor of migration at Maastricht University, said to the newspaper. “It is interesting that in recent years the Netherlands and other countries have largely focused on these European initiatives. The idea is then: together, we are stronger. Yet we have to conclude that it is precisely these EU-wide agreements that do not show any effect on people’s return.”

These return agreements are not a necessary condition for deporting asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies and are usually not sufficient, the researchers concluded. For them to have any effect, the country of origin also needs to have goodwill towards and a good relationship with the Netherlands. The researchers did not specifically investigate it, but suspect that this is why EU-wide agreements are less effective.

“It comes down to mutual understanding, and that is more difficult to achieve when the countries of origin face a large, general Europe. There could be something wrong with the philosophy behind those EU-wide agreements.”

According to researchers, there needs to be “more realism” in politics on these agreements. “We have to be honest: full enforcement is not possible. Not even by countries that invest a lot in return, like the Netherlands.”

Asylum seekers already risked a lot to get here and are willing to pay a lot to live here, undocumented if necessary, Leerkes said. “The paradox is: the harder it is to get to Europe, the more important it is to stay. In that sense, you could say that a return rate of 30 percent is quite significant.”