A total of 5000 additional places are needed. Since the summer, the number of people applying for asylum in the Netherlands has risen.
In the first nine months of this year, 14 545 people applied for asylum in the Netherlands for the first time. Throughout 2017 there were 14 716.
To accommodate everyone temporarily while awaiting the asylum procedure, the COA needs new reception centres. This is striking because some eleven locations have been closed this year.
The largest group of asylum seekers came from Iran (320) in September, followed by Syria (276). There are also more and more asylum seekers from Turkey, especially in the last two months.
The US has been pressuring Europe to allow Islamic State militants captured in Syria and Iraq back to their home countries in an effort to ensure they do not return to the battlefield, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In July, Spain’s Department of National Security said fighters from groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda are being driven out of countries like Syria and Iraq, according to Madrid-based newspaper ABC .
A report by the authority said there are an estimated 50 000 jihadists who travelled to fight in the Middle East – some 6 000 of which were from Europe.
It is also striking that many people from safe countries still try to get an asylum permit. For example, there is a clear increase in the number of asylum applications from Albanians and Algerians to the Netherlands.
Applications from such safe countries are picked up at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) and rejected by a quick procedure.
State Secretary Harbers (VVD) described the increase in the number of asylum seekers as “the usual seasonal peak”, but that does not explain why the number of first asylum applications now almost equals the total of 2017. The overcrowded asylum seekers’ centers certainly do not support the notion of a “seasonal peak”.
An additional problem for the COA is that there are still 6500 “refugees” with a residence permit living in asylum seeker centres. They are still waiting for a house in the municipality to which they have been assigned.
Municipalities are forced to house a certain number of permit holders, relative to their number of residents. They are told twice a year how many license holders need to be provided for by Dutch taxpayers.