Dutch gov't is deliberately chipping away at public support for asylum: A'dam alderman

The national budget and King’s Budget Day speech were not well received in Amsterdam. It feels like the Cabinet is deliberately deteriorating support for sheltering asylum seekers, alderman Marjolein Moorman told AT5.

A “grip on migration,” asylum migration in particular, was a big priority in the King’s speech on Tuesday. The government wants to severely restrict the number of people who can seek safety in the Netherlands and has already announced that it would stop funding the bed-bath-and-bread shelters in five large cities for asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies. Last week, Prime Minister Dick Schoof told the Amsterdam broadcaster that failed asylum seekers have the responsibility to leave themselves.

“If people can do it, then I understand that they themselves have a responsibility to leave. Only, we see that there is a very large group of rejected asylum seekers who, for example, are stateless, or whose papers have been lost, or the country of origin says: you can’t come back, and we will not take you back. Those people fall between the cracks. Those people have nothing,” Moorman told AT5. “That means that these people live on the street, and that causes nuisance at some point.”

“I have the feeling that sometimes the support base is deliberately removed. The moment you no longer give people basic facilities, no bed-bath-bread. The most basic thing a person can get, then people start wandering the streets, and then they might start squatting out of great need. Of course, that removes the support base. The moment you reduce the shelters everywhere. And what is happening in Ter Apel.”

The asylum registration center in Ter Apel has been structurally overcrowded for around two years. For the past two nights, asylum seekers barely escaped sleeping outside. On both nights, municipalities made a building available for them to spend the night in at the last moment. The government also plans to scrap the asylum distribution law, which is intended to relieve pressure on Ter Apel by forcing unwilling municipalities to take in a fair share of people.

Moorman “sometimes has the feeling” that the government and Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber are “deliberately” chipping away at public support for asylum seekers. “I understand that this statement says quite a lot, but we all know that there is a reception crisis. This is a stupid policy at best, but also a cynical policy,” the Amsterdam alderman concluded.