Dutch immigration office not following up on residency fraud claims: whistleblowers

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) and the Ministry of Justice and Security are not following up on whistleblowers’ reports of potential residency permit fraud. NRC found six cases in which two whistleblowers reported serious indications of fraud that were not investigated any further. According to the newspaper, the whistleblowers were told that “filing a complaint is usually not the most appropriate way” to handle fraud suspicions.

Both whistleblowers work for the IND’s Family department. The 16 groups in this department are responsible for assessing applications from immigrants to let family members join them in the Netherlands. They check IDs, marriage certificates, integration papers, criminal records, and whether the applicant can support the family members they want bring over, among other things.

In July 2022, one whistleblower became suspicious when one of the applications she was working on suddenly disappeared from her list. A recently married Moroccan-Dutch man applied to bring his new wife to the Netherlands. She looked into it and found that the application had been approved, despite many of the required documents not being submitted. The application had been approved by a colleague rumored to favor Moroccans. She reported the situation to her manager and the integrity office, but nothing came of it.

In November 2022, the other whistleblower sent an email to a four-star hotel in Maastricht to check three invoices “in connection with possible fraud in a residence permit investigation.” A Turkish hairdresser and his wife claimed to have stayed in room 307 of the hotel in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The hotel responded that they weren’t even open yet in 2017 and did not have a room number 307. The employee also had evidence that the hairdresser was in a fake marriage to gain residency, including reports from customers saying he bragged about it while cutting their hair. Despite this, another team approved the man’s application. He reported it to his manager and the IND’s integrity office, but nothing came of it.

NRC also found a report about an IND employee who provided a residency permit to a criminal with an entry ban and ten convictions, despite objections from the Dutch embassy. There was also a tip about another fake marriage and paying 5,000 for a residency permit.

At the end of 2023, the two whistleblowers, separately from each other, decided to take the matter further and report it to the integrity office of the Ministry of Justice and Security, which is responsible for the IND. Here, too, little happened, according to NRC.

Suddenly last week, a special confidential advisor from the Ministry advised it to investigate their reports further and offer the two whistleblowers legal protection. The advisor had gotten wind of the whistleblowers and looked into the six cases they reported. He came to different conclusions than the integrity offices and urged the Ministry to reconsider the matter.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice and Security’s integrity committee told NRC that “the IND investigation was thoroughly examined” and found to be “carried out with sufficient expertise and adequate questions asked” The Ministry, therefore, had “no reason to doubt the investigation results.”

An IND spokesperson said that the service “never responds substantively to individual cases in the media.” They added that the IND recently received “information that was not yet known to us” from the Ministry’s advisor and will “conduct an investigation based on this to be able to actually draw conclusions.”