Entire left-wing opposition pleads with gov't not to deport Amsterdam boy to Armenia

The party leaders of all left-wing opposition parties in the lower house of the Dutch Parliament called on Minister Marjolein Faber of Asylum not to deport 11-year-old Mikael from Amsterdam. The leaders of GroenLinks-PvdA, D66, SP, PvdD, ChristenUnie, Volt, and DENK made their appeal in an open letter in the Volkskrant.

The Amsterdam boy Mikael was born in the Netherlands while his mother’s residency permit procedure was ongoing. She came to the Netherlands from Armenia in 2010. Her asylum application was rejected at the time. Last month, the Council of State ruled that Mikael and his mother cannot stay in the Netherlands. Minister Faber then repeatedly said that she could not do anything for Mikael and his mother.

However, according to the seven party leaders, there is “no law that prevents the Cabinet from allowing Mikael to stay in the Netherlands.” They called it a “political choice” if the Cabinet does not allow Mikael to stay. “We are not putting an 11-year-old boy, born and raised here, on a plane to a country he has never been to.”

The faction leaders of the left-wing opposition don’t believe Faber’s claims that there is nothing she could do. They refer to two experts for this. “Although the Minister has agreed with the IND that she will not use this discretionary power, the law gives her every opportunity to intervene. She simply does not want to,” Frans Timmermans (GL-PvdA), Rob Jettein (D66), Jimmy Dijk (SP), Esther Ouwehand (PvdD), Mirjam Bikker (CU), Laurens Dassen (Volt), and Stephan van Baarle (DENK).

“You can be strict, but then you also have to be fair,” they wrote. “Deporting Mikael and his mother will in no way contribute to a better Netherlands, as the government claims to strive for. It is nothing more or less than heartless symbolic politics. Also, because a residence permit has been granted in similar cases.”