Amsterdam-born boy, 11, facing deportation to Armenia over strict child asylum rules

Mikael, an 11-year-old boy who was born in Amsterdam, is facing deportation to Armenia. The Amsterdam court previously ruled that the boy should be granted a residency permit. But despite that ruling, a personal appeal from Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, and a petition signed almost 25,000 times, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) still wants to deport him.

Mikael lives with his mother, Gohar Matsoyan (54), in an asylum center in Amsterdam Zuidoost and is set to start at the Cygnus Gymnasium after the summer. The asylum center is their fifth address so far. On August 1, Mikael and his mother will be evicted from the asylum center and taken to a family location, where they will be prepared for deportation to Armenia.

“The IND might as well send me to Ghana. I know that country just as well as I know Armenia,” Mikael told Parool. He has known no other life than Amsterdam. The IND has been trying to deport him for five years. “We live in constant uncertainty,” the boy said. “It causes a lot of stress.”

In 2023, the Rutte II government implemented a children’s pardon for kids who have lived in the Netherlands for a long time without a residency permit because they’re asylum procedure took too long or their parents didn’t cooperate. Children who had lived in the Netherlands for five years or longer on 1 February 2023 would receive a residency permit under certain conditions. This was the transitional arraignment.

Mikael wasn’t five years old yet, so he fell under the much stricter “definitive arrangement” on his fifth birthday. Four years after the arrangement took effect, only 6.7 percent of children who applied for this arrangement got a residency permit, compared to 46.9 percent of kids who fell under the transitional arrangement, according to the newspaper.

In November 2021, the Amsterdam court ruled that Mikael and his mother should be granted residency in the Netherlands. The State Secretary of Asylum Affairs filed an appeal. The case has still not been brought before the Council of State, which will make the final ruling. “We have been waiting for the verdict for 2.5 years now,” Gohar told Parool. She thinks the government is playing with her child’s life. “It’s just the two of us. We don’t want to be a burden to anyone. All we want is peace and a place to live in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is our home, we have people here who feel like family.”

Lawyer Martin Vegter of Defnese for Children, who is representing Mikael and his mother, told Parool that outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg has written an appeal of “many dozens” of pages to get this boy deported. “And that while the IND has a backlog of 70,000 cases. How much money does this cost, and why does the State Secretary choose to invest so much money and resources into this case involving a child?” Defense for Children is aware of at least four other similar cases that the Ministry continues to litigate.