ANNP Marechaussees at the registration center in Ter Apel
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 04:33
In the first eleven months of 2023, 250 failed asylum seekers from Morocco were deported to their own country. That is the highest number in ten years, the Return and Departure Service reports to De Telegraaf. Another 700 people should follow within six months.
For years, Morocco refused to take back compatriots, but the government has invested a lot in improving the relationship in recent years. For example, State Secretary Van der Burg (Justice and Security) was able to make agreements with the Moroccan Minister of the Interior last year, while his predecessor Broekers-Knol was still frustrated.
Morocco stopped accepting asylum seekers who had exhausted all legal remedies after the Netherlands criticized Morocco’s suppression of the protest movement in the Rif Mountains. To improve the relationship, the cabinet decided to speak out less about internal affairs in Morocco.
New problems
The cooperation is now “almost ideal” according to the State Secretary. Asylum seekers who are detained because they have no chance of staying here are deported within a few weeks, according to an asylum lawyer in the newspaper.
Van der Burg does see that newcomers are adapting to the stricter policy. They often do not wait for their application to be rejected but quickly disappear into illegality. “That’s our problem now.”
“They know perfectly well that they are not allowed to stay and that if they are rejected they will be put in immigration detention,” the minister said. Before that can happen, the rejected asylum seekers move on to unknown places in the Netherlands or another EU country.
Last year, about a thousand asylum seekers came from Morocco, according to the Return and Departure Service.
2024-01-22 03:33:41
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