Dutch border forces have conducted over 123,000 checks, denied entry to 470 people

The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee carried out 123,320 border checks between December 9 of last year and September 8 of this year. During that period, 470 people were denied entry to the Netherlands, according to the Ministry of Asylum and Migration. Another 230 people were arrested.

The ministry reported that roughly 5,350 Marechaussee officers were deployed for no less than 7,830 hours. During that time, 29,420 vehicles were checked. Most of the people involved, 85,650, were citizens of countries within the European Union.

People who were refused at the border were denied entry to the Netherlands in part because they could not explain why they were coming or how long they planned to stay.

The mobile border checks were introduced by the former Minister of Asylum and Migration, Marjolein Faber of the PVV. In June, her successor, David van Weel of the VVD, announced plans to expand the checks. In a letter to Parliament, he suggested that increasing mobile border checks might lower the overall need for border controls, since suspicious cases could be detected and dealt with more efficiently.

Van Weel recently expressed caution regarding the use of military personnel for border control duties. While a parliamentary majority backs the BBB motion to incorporate border surveillance into the training of professional soldiers, the outgoing minister stopped short of guaranteeing that troops would be deployed for this role.