Dutch Senate shoots down stricter asylum law, but approves two status system
The Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate, shot down the previous Cabinet’s Asylum Emergency Act, aimed at implementing the strictest asylum system yet. The Senators did vote in another, allowing a distinction between people fleeing war or natural disasters and people seeking asylum because they’re at risk due to their ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
The Asylum Emergency Measures Act included measures like shortening residency permits for refugees, reviewing temporary permits more frequently, and making family reunification more difficult. When passing the law through the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, the PVV added the measure to make being undocumented in the country a criminal offense.
The law died in the Eerste Kamer due to that amendment. Various parties pointed out that this could result in ordinary citizens getting a criminal record for helping someone who is undocumented. An amendment was submitted to ensure that aiding an undocumented person would not be punishable, but there was too little support for it in the Senate. For several parties, that was the reason to vote against the law.
The PVV refused to accept the amendment to not criminalize helping an undocumented person. So former PVV Minister Marjolein Faber’s plans for the strictest asylum policy yet crashed over a PVV motion to make it stricter, and the far-right party’s refusal to back down a bit.
The law establishing a two-status system for asylum seekers did get a majority vote. This law allows the Dutch authorities to make a distinction between people fleeing persecution due to their sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion, and people fleeing from war and the consequences of climate change.
Under the two-status system, asylum seekers are assigned an A or B status when applying. People fleeing persecution are given A status and will have more rights than people fleeing war and natural disasters, who will have B status. Among other things, B-status asylum seekers would get a limited residency permit and have no right to family reunification.
