Overcrowding at Dutch refugee shelters expected; Asylum seekers will sleep on the grass

VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said on Wednesday that she expects asylum seekers will be forced to sleep on the grass at the main asylum reception center in Ter Apel this summer. The party leader and current justice minister remarked about the situation during a debate in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament. Her admission came hours after the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) said that many municipalities have already started abandoning plans to create thousands of shelter placements for asylum seekers because the new Cabinet intends to repeal the Distribution Act.

In the debate about the new coalition agreement, she said she "is afraid that this summer will sadly be no different" from last summer, when inhumane conditions at the Ter Apel center earned headlines and condemnation globally. At the same time, she promised to do her best to prevent this, as it is not how it is supposed to be in a responsible country.

These comments led to criticism from the CDA, ChristenUnie, and D66, who think that the shelter situation will only worsen in the coming period. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius pointed out that the measures that the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB are proposing to lower the number of asylum seekers coming into the country are not close to being implemented. She also thinks that the new plan is legally not possible yet.

Yeşilgöz-Zegerius hardly discussed the blame she was getting for this but mainly pointed out that the Netherlands must become a less attractive destination for asylum seekers. She stated that this would lower the influx of arriving newcomers, and create more space to help people who have a better chance at actually being granted refugee status. She would not say what the maximum number of asylum seekers they would like in the country would be.

Parties in the outgoing coalition, which had been working with the VVD, believe that the VVD is acting with complacency towards "cynical politics" by repealing the Distribution Act first, before actually reducing the inflow of asylum seekers. Those parties making the claim include the CDA, ChristenUnie, and D66. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius would not respond to the request made by Frans Timmermans of GroenLinks-PvdA to switch the order in which the policies will be implemented by the incoming coalition.

Rob Jetten of D66 and Mirjam Bikker of ChristenUnie reminded the VVD leader that the Cabinet fell last year because of asylum and immigration issues, even though a package of possibly stricter measures was near a deal. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius said that those measures did not go far enough. She named a string of measures that she believed would lead to a quick reduction in the number of asylum seekers coming to the country, but for which there was no support at the time.

According to Bikker, many problems surrounding asylum reception could have been prevented by adopting the Distribution Act earlier. The announcement that the Distribution Act is to be repealed has led to fewer shelter places, as municipalities have stopped preparing them.

The Distribution Act was passed in the Senate in January, with support from the VVD members. The law arranges the distribution of asylum seekers across municipalities. Every municipality has to find a certain number of shelter places. If municipalities are unable to do so, the government can step in and assign a location.

Asylum agency COA said this has resulted in around 2,000 or 2,500 fewer places with 8,100 shelter places needed to be found before July 1, and the COA added that reaching this figure seems unlikely. The COA did not mention any municipalities specifically that were abandoning their plans.

Scrapping the shelter plans will result in “hundreds of people not being able to be given shelter and accompaniment short term. This could lead to an inhuman situation and irresponsible pressure on the staff members,” the organization added.

The outgoing state secretary for asylum issues, VVD politician Eric van der Burg, was the architect behind the Distribution Act, also said last week that municipalities are making less effort to find shelter places. He said at the time that this has reduced the number of spots for asylum seekers by 1,500.

However, Van der Brug voted for the coalition agreement as an MP and will stay in the VVD faction.

There has been significant resistance to the obligation to receive asylum seekers in the municipality of Westland in Zuid-Holland. The city council there wants the municipality to ignore the Distribution Act. The political factions are happy with the national plans proposed by the four coalition parties.

Nijkerk in Gelderland will not look to create any new shelter places for the asylum seekers for the time being. Other municipalities have said that nothing has changed yet: as long as the Distribution Act has not been repealed, it is in force, and asylum seekers must be taken in and given shelter too, they said.

The Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG) is concerned about the possible repeal of the Distribution Act.