Refugees who come to the Netherlands must first register in Ter Apel (Groningen). There they will be told whether they will receive a residence permit. If so, they become status holders. In many cases, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) needs more time to determine whether someone will become a status holder. The people who are still waiting for a residence permit are called asylum seekers and until that time they are in an asylum seekers center (AZC) or – as has been happening more and more in recent months – a crisis emergency shelter.
As soon as asylum seekers are granted residence status, it is up to the municipality to find them a home. Depending on the size, every municipality in the Netherlands is given a mandatory number of status holders to accommodate.
The application center in Ter Apel is currently overcrowded. This is because the asylum seekers’ centers are also overcrowded – and that in turn is because the transfer of status holders to a home is also difficult. More and more emergency shelters are also housing people who are already entitled to a home.
With this decision, Utrecht hopes to relieve the acute pressure on the asylum seekers’ centers and eventually Ter Apel as well by accelerating the placement of status holders. But, thinks Monique Korpershoek of Vluchtelingenwerk, much more is needed in the end. “In the end, I hope that more municipalities will follow this example. The situation in Ter Apel is really distressing. You can find whatever you want about the arrival of refugees, but we have made an agreement to receive people. Then we have to as a country also take good care of them.”