# taz.de -- Migration policy in the Netherlands: Reforms and repeated Internment

	# taz.de -- Migration policy in the Netherlands: Reforms and repeated Internment

	> The willigness to accomodate refugees in the Netherlands is limited. But
	> there are efforts to improve the situation of displaced people staying in
	> the country.

	Bild: A shelter for asylum seekers in Nijmegen

	About a quarter of the people who submitted asylum application in the
	Netherlands in the first months of 2016 reportedly were refused a residency
	permit and were sent back to their home countries, because they came from
	countries that are considered „safe.“ The most common “safe“ countries
	included Albania, Serbia and Kosovo. Nine hundred people from these three
	countries applied for asylum in the first nine weeks of 2016. According to
	official statistics, in 2015 10,240, were returned, of whom 1,850 were
	deported; in 2014 out of the total 9,800 persons returned, 2,100 were
	deported.

	As of November 2016, the Netherlands operated three dedicated immigration
	detention centres, located in Zeist, Rotterdam, and at the Schiphol
	International Airport (Justitieel Complex Schiphol). The Custodial
	Institutions Agency manages these facilities. In 2013 the UN Committee
	against Torture found that the legal regime in immigration detention
	centres resembled the legal regime in penal institutions.

	Dutch authorities have been criticized for the practice of re-detention,
	detaining a non-citizen after his or her release. Reportedly, almost 30
	percent of immigration detainees in 2010 had previously been detained. The
	country has also faced criticism for its detention of children and
	families. This spurred the opening in October 2014 of a Closed Family
	Facility, which reportedly offers improved conditions.

	The number of immigration detainees in the Netherlands has dropped
	significantly in recent years, from 6,104 in 2011 to 2,176 in 2015.
	According to some accounts this is due in part to the fact that the
	government “takes the obligation to consider alternatives more seriously
	than it did before“ the EU Return Directive was adopted. Another reason is
	a Council of State ruling prohibiting mobile surveillance teams of the
	Royal Military Constabulary to arrest irregular migrants at the border with
	other EU countries. Fewer detainees have in turn spurred a reduction in the
	capacity of the Dutch immigration detention estate, from 1,950 in 2011 to
	933 in 2016.

	Other reform efforts have included proposed new rules on the conditions of
	detention. After the suicide of an asylum seeker in early 2013 in the
	Rotterdam Detention Centre, the Security and Justice Inspectorate conducted
	an investigation and found that the government acted negligently in terms
	of medical and legal assistance. This led to the drafting of the Return and
	Detention Act. The Act, which was still in Parliamentary debate as of late
	2016, would regulate conditions and regime of detention, which are
	currently governed by rules applicable to penitentiaries.

	Also important to note, two overseas territories of the Kingdom of the
	Netherlands, Aruba and Curaçao, operate immigration detention centres. A
	report by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in 2015
	provided details about operations at these immigration facilities, which
	the CPT found during its 2014 visit to have “adequate“ material conditions
	despite shortcomings related to staffing, operations, and procedural
	standards. The plight of detainees on these islands made headlines in late
	2016 as officials there ramped up efforts to interdict the thousands of
	Venezuelans fleeing their country in the wake of its economic collapse.
	Referring to growing consternation in the Netherlands over the situation
	and the effort to stop the flow, a Coast Guard officer in Curacao told the
	New York Times, “They want to prevent a situation like Libya.“

	15 Dec 2016

	## AUTOREN

	Global Detention Project

	## TAGS

	migControl

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