Refugees' council sues Dutch State over asylum reception crisis

Vluchtelinenwerk Nederland will sue the government and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) within the next three weeks. The organization wants to force a solution to the crisis in asylum shelters.

At the beginning of July, the Netherlands’ council for refugees announced that it would go to court if asylum seekers were not sheltered in accordance with the minimum requirements by August 1. According to the organization, the situation has since fallen even further below the humanitarian threshold.

In recent weeks, hundreds of asylum seekers slept on the grass outside the asylum application center in Ter Apel, Vluchtelingenwerk said. “Others have been staying in emergency shelter locations like tents and sports halls with camp beds for several months. Thousands have been waiting for almost a year for improvements in emergency shelter locations like event halls and tent camps. In many places, the most basic conditions are lacking in the shelter, like decent food, a bed, adequate and clean sanitation, privacy, and protection from the elements.”

For months, the central government and municipalities have been at an impasse about who is responsible, said Vluchtelingenwerk. With a court ruling, the advocate for asylum seekers and refugees wants to break this impasse. “After the Security Council on July 18, municipalities reiterated that the crisis emergency reception will end on October 1. They rightly point out that this reception crisis is not the result of a refugee crisis, but of political choices that left the asylum system in a permanent state of crisis for years.”

According to the organization, one of the causes of this impasse is a lack of perspective on the central government’s part. “Free requests to municipalities to propose reception locations have an insufficient effect. A legislative amendment that will enable the central government to designate reception locations is in the making, but the time for waiting is over.”

Vluchtelingenwerk is finalizing a summons that it plans to file within three weeks.

The Ministry of Justice and Security, responsible for Asylum, understands that Vluchtelingenwerk is turning to the court. A spokesperson said so when asked. The Ministry also believes that the reception of asylum seekers is not good.

State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum) called the situation in Ter Apel “unsustainable” in a letter to parliament on Thursday. The Ministry has been “searching hard” for solutions for a long time, the Ministry of Justice and Security spokesperson said. In addition, the government activated a national crisis structure under which the Ministerial Crisis Management Committee (MCCb) is authorized to take measures on behalf of the Cabinet to tackle the crisis as quickly as possible. That includes arranging large cruise ships for asylum seekers.

Municipalities have arranged many extra crisis shelters in the past weeks, the spokesperson said. Of the 5,626 places the security regions must arrange before October 1, they have achieved over 4,100 so far.

In The Hague, Delft, and Voorschoten, the COA will open reception centers for a total of 800 people in the coming week and a half. In addition, according to the spokesperson, there are advanced discussions about both new asylum centers and registration centers.

According to the spokesperson, long-term measures should prevent the current reception crisis for asylum seekers from repeating itself.

Last week NRC reported that the COA is on the verge of collapse due to staff shortages and absenteeism. At Ter Apel, about a third of COA employees are home sick or burnt out. The agency’s absenteeism rate is 9 percent nationwide. It also has about 1,000 unfilled vacancies.

The COA currently employs about 4,000 people. It accommodates 43,000 asylum seekers and refugees and has to increase that to 51,000 reception places by the end of this year.