Nigerian family deported after years in Netherlands despite integration

A Nigerian mother and her three children were deported from the Netherlands on Thursday, marking the first known removal of “rooted” children since the Dutch child asylum pardon policy (kinderpardon) was abolished for new cases in 2019, de Volkskrant reports.

The three children, ages 7, 11, and 16, and their mother were placed on a flight to Lagos, Nigeria, from Schiphol Airport after the Council of State rejected a last-minute legal appeal to halt the deportation. The family had been living in an asylum seekers' center (AZC) in Emmen while awaiting a residence permit. The two eldest children and their mother had been in the Netherlands for more than eight years; the youngest child was born in the country.

Under the original kinderpardon introduced in 2013, children who had been in the Netherlands for more than five years while waiting for an asylum decision were allowed to stay, based on the argument that they had become deeply integrated into Dutch society and deportation would be inhumane. In early 2019, the Rutte III cabinet ended the policy for new cases, though families already in the system were given a “broad arrangement” allowing many to remain.

According to ChildSupporto, the organization representing the family, and Defence for Children Netherlands, no other cases of deportation involving “rooted” children have been confirmed since the change in law. “To our knowledge, this is the first time it has actually happened,” Herman Stomphorst of ChildSupporto, who accompanied the family through the legal proceedings, told de Volkskrant.

The children had attended school in the Netherlands and reportedly spoke little of their native language. The oldest child was preparing to begin a vocational education (MBO) program. The family’s appeal for a residence permit had been rejected, although a higher appeal with the Council of State is still pending.

In recent years, other high-profile cases—such as that of Mikael, a 12-year-old born in the Netherlands—have drawn attention when children were told by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) that they had to leave. However, those cases did not result in actual deportations, as far as is publicly known.

Ahead of Thursday’s deportation, the family had been transferred to a detention center in Zeist. Friends and supporters were not given an opportunity to say goodbye. On Wednesday, the family tried to stop the deportation by petitioning the Council of State for permission to remain in Zeist while awaiting the outcome of their appeal. That request was denied, according to the decision shared with de Volkskrant.

The four family members were then flown to Lagos, where they were handed over to Nigerian authorities. “They no longer have any contacts there,” said Stomphorst. “They are not even from Lagos, but from a region far from the city. They are completely alone in Lagos.”