More family reunification requests in second quarter, but fewer than a year ago

In April, May, and June of this year, 2,630 people came to the Netherlands to be reunited with family members with refugee status here. Over two-thirds of them came from Syria, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported based on the latest figures from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND). The number of family reunification requests was lower than a year ago in the same period when 3,170 people came to the Netherlands to join their families.

Compared to the first three months of this year, the number of family reunifications has increased. In January, February, and March, 1,900 people came to the Netherlands in this way.

Disagreement about family reunification for refugees was the main reason for the fall of the Rutte IV Cabinet early in July. The coalition parties could not agree on a package of measures to limit the influx of asylum seekers, one of which was a brake on family reunification. One of the plans on the table was allowing no more than 200 family reunifications per month.

Apart from family reunification, 7,920 people applied for asylum in the Netherlands for the first time in the past quarter. That is almost 15 percent more than in the first quarter and 8 percent more than in the second quarter last year. In April, May, and June 2022, 7,330 people filed their first asylum application in the Netherlands.

According to CBS, the number of asylum applications by people from Syria and Eritrea, in particular, increased quarter-on-quarter. Compared to a year ago, the number of Eritreans seeking asylum in the Netherlands has almost doubled: in April, May, and June 2022, 260 people from Eritrea applied for asylum here, compared to 510 in the second quarter this year.

The number of asylum seekers from Moldova also increased. According to CBS, more people have been fleeing to the Netherlands from that Eastern European country for some time now. In the second quarter of this year, there were 160 people, against 60 Moldovans in the same period last year. Moldova is located between Ukraine and Romania. Russian troops are stationed in Transnistria, a region separated from Moldova because of the war in Ukraine.