Asylum Minister can't force Amsterdam to scrap overnight shelter for undocumented people
Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber was not allowed to stop Amsterdam from offering overnight shelter to undocumented migrants, the administrative court ruled in 28 cases on Monday. “The Minister must now consider each person individually to see how to proceed. Until then, they may temporarily remain in the shelter offered by the municipality of Amsterdam, which the responsible Minister must pay for,” the court said.
This involves the bed-bath-bread regulation, for which Faber wanted to cut the funding as of January 1 of this year. The undocumented people who use these shelters in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen, Eindhoven, and Utrecht are typically vulnerable people with physical or mental health problems.
Faber decided to cut funding for these shelters on January 1, arguing that the people who use them are not entitled to a residency permit and “should have left a long time ago.” 28 people who used the Amsterdam overnight shelter took the matter to court.
According to the court, “these 28 people have demonstrated that they will not be able to provide their own bed, bath, and bread if the shelter is terminated, and will therefore run a great risk of inhumane or degrading treatment.”
Faber should not have terminated the shelter of these 28 people without further investigation, the court ruled. The only alternative the Minister offered them was the restrictive location in Ter Apel, where asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies can receive basic shelter provided that they cooperate in their deportation. According to the court, it is unclear whether this location even had space to accommodate the 28 people in the Amsterdam shelter, and she failed to investigate whether they were physically and mentally able to cooperate in their deportation.
“The condition to cooperate in returning to the country of origin may in principle be imposed on a foreigner who is granted shelter, but not in all cases, for example, if someone is mentally unable to foresee the consequences of their actions,” the court said. “If the condition to cooperate in returning is imposed for admission to the [Ter Apel restricted location], then, as a safety net, a form of shelter that is unconditional will also always be needed. After all, the national government has the duty to ensure that this group of people does not end up in an inhumane situation.”
The court ordered Faber to find a solution for each of the 28 people individually and pay for their temporary shelter in Amsterdam until then.
Courts previously also ordered Faber to continue funding bed-bath-bread shelters in Utrecht and Rotterdam after January 1.
