Concerns about Family Reunification of Asylum Seekers in the Netherlands: Fact or Fiction?

The day after the Rutte-IV cabinet fell, outgoing minister Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius (Justice and Security, VVD) expressed concern about asylum seekers who would bring their entire family to the Netherlands. On talk show Op1 she told on Saturday evening about asylum seekers who are allowed to stay in the Netherlands, then have their family members come over, who in turn bring other family members over. “So then ten people can just come after one asylum seeker?”, presenter Tijs van den Brink asked her. “Very much,” Yesilgöz answered quickly.

But according to those involved, the scenario that Yesilgöz sketched at the talk show table, “the accumulation of family reunification”, hardly occurs in practice.

An asylum officer calls it “a non-issue”. Refugee Work states that the stacking of asylum applications happens “very rarely”, it would concern “a few dozen” cases per year (last year a total of almost fifty thousand asylum seekers came to the Netherlands). The Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), charged with processing applications for family reunification, says it cannot confirm those numbers – the IND is still working on an analysis. Sources from the coalition also say they do not know the figures, because the Ministry of Justice and Security would not have shared them during the collapsed negotiations on migration.

An asylum officer calls outgoing minister Yesilgöz’s “stacker” scenario “a non-issue”

According to the current asylum procedure, recognized asylum seekers are allowed to bring their own family members to the Netherlands. Usually it concerns their partners and children. Last year, more than ten thousand ‘following relatives’ were allowed to travel to the Netherlands in this way, according to figures from the IND. The VVD, with the support of the CDA, wanted this form of family migration to be limited. The ChristenUnie, supported by D66, found this unacceptable. The parties sometimes agreed on limiting ‘family reunification on family reunification’, they also told the talk show table, but how many of those ‘following relatives’ then let someone come over themselves was not mentioned there either.

An earlier attempt

The coalition reached an agreement last summer on limiting family reunification, albeit short-lived. That was when the asylum seekers centers were so full that asylum seekers had to sleep in front of the gates of the application center in Ter Apel. Almost a third of the people in asylum seekers’ centers already have a residence permit and are therefore entitled to social housing. Only: there are not enough houses. But this means that these status holders do occupy places for asylum seekers.

Outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD) had thought that family members of status holders who did not yet have a home would have to wait an extra six months until they could be reunited with their family member. His officials already warned him about the legal untenability of this restriction, but Van der Burg persevered.

Soon, in December, the courts of Amsterdam, Arnhem, Haarlem and Breda ruled that the family reunification measure is in violation of the Dutch Aliens Act, European laws and regulations and international law. The highest administrative court at the Council of State came to the same verdict in February this year. About 1,200 family members were then able to come to the Netherlands.

Bee Op1 Yesilgöz sketched a scenario of a “stacker” on Saturday. She told about partners of status holders who are allowed to come over under the current rules, but who have already married again in the country of origin. In that case, the new family must also come over, the minister said. And the new family, in turn, wants dependent relatives – such as grandparents or children from other marriages – to come over, she says. “It is not what refugee protection is aimed at,” said Yesilgöz.

Two status system

“In theory, that scenario is possible,” responds Martijn van der Linden of Refugee Work, which supervises almost all family reunification procedures in the Netherlands. But in practice, according to other parties involved, such requests are almost always rejected by the IND. Asylum seekers who want a grandpa or grandma to come over must start a separate procedure for this. “You have to be able to demonstrate, for example, that no one else in Syria can take care of grandpa or grandma, or that the necessary medicines are really not available,” says Van der Linden. “If the court does agree, the IND will appeal as standard. Then endless tug-of-war ensues.”

Yesilgöz, who led talks on curbing migration for the past nine months, also acknowledged that for the family restriction to succeed, the asylum system needs to be overhauled. Coalition parties had already agreed to investigate the reintroduction of the two-status system. Within that system, a distinction is made between people who flee because of ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion (the a-status), and people who flee from war and other violence (the b-status). In theory, war refugees have fewer rights because they can return when the conflict ends.

When the current Aliens Act was introduced in 2001, the two statuses were abolished to spare the IND and judges from futile procedures. The Netherlands is currently the only European country to issue one asylum status. Germany plans to abolish its two-status system following the Dutch example.

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper on July 11, 2023.
2023-07-10 20:06:51
#Experts #dispute #minister #Yesilgözs #claim #family #members