Author
Border monitoring
There is border control at the external borders of the Netherlands at the European external border at airports, in seaports and along the coast. Mobile Security Supervision (MTV) is the supervision unit of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar), monitoring persons travelling to the Netherlands from another Schengen country at the Belgian and German borders. The checks take place on roads, in trains, on water and in air traffic. In the area immediately behind the border, the KMar checks travel documents on a random basis.
Migration control dogs help the KMar detect hidden persons (stowaways) in – for example – trucks, coaches and buses that cross the borders. In the ports of IJmuiden and Hoek van Holland, dogs are also used to search ships, containers, and vehicles traveling to and from the United Kingdom via ferry.
For asylum seekers requesting asylum at the border, KMar is the organisation responsible for the initial care.[1]
There have not been any reports of pushbacks at the Dutch borders.
Legal access to the territory
Resettled refugees
The Netherlands take part in the UNHCR resettlement programme; prior to 2021, it aimed at resettling 500 refugees per year. The new Dutch government announced in its Coalition Agreement for 2021 until 2025 the will to increase the number of resettled refugees from 500 to 900 per year.[2] In 2022, 717 refugees were resettled to the Netherlands, 437 of which came from Syria. In 2023, 801 refugees were resettled to the Netherlands, 428 of which are Syrian.[3] UNHCR identifies vulnerable asylum seekers as candidates for resettlement. The Dutch government will then embark on ‘selection missions’ to certain countries (usually in the Middle East or Africa) to interview these candidates and establish whether they are eligible for resettlement to the Netherlands.[4] This usually occurs four or five times per year.[5] The specific details of this selection process is unclear. Asylum seekers selected to resettle to the Netherlands arrive at International Airport Schiphol.[6] Following the mandatory health and identity checks at Schiphol, they are immediately granted an asylum permit, and can directly move into their allocated house in the responsible Dutch municipality.[7] At this point, their rights and obligations are the same as permit holders that have undergone the Regular Procedure.
No asylum seekers were relocated from other EU member states during 2022. During 2021, 50 asylum seekers were relocated to the Netherlands.[8] Information on 2023 was not available at the time of publication of this report.
Short stay visa
As a rule, people coming from non-EU countries willing to stay in the Netherlands for a maximum of 90 days need a visa. A short stay visa can be issued on the grounds of family visits, touristic or business reasons. A short stay visa allows the holder to travel to the Schengen countries and Switzerland.[9]
A visa could be refused when Dutch authorities evaluate that the third-country national does not have sufficient reasons to return to their country of origin. For example, if the person concerned does not have a job, school-aged children or a house of their own property in said country.
In view of these considerations, obtaining a short stay visa might prove difficult for persons coming from countries where the general safety situation is critical or deteriorating. No policy regulating the issuance of humanitarian visas according to Article 25 (1) of the Visa Code is in place.[10] Humanitarian visas are thus not provided for people aiming to come to the Netherlands to request international protection.
Some third country nationals are exempted from a Schengen visa, such as Ukrainians who hold a biometric passport. For more info regarding Ukrainians benefiting from Temporary Protection, see Annex on Temporary Protection.
Regarding legal access of people in need of protection to Dutch territory, see also Family reunification.
Afghan nationals
In 2021, the Dutch government committed to assisting certain groups of Afghan nationals in being repatriated or transferred from Afghanistan to the Netherlands. This includes the following categories of Afghan nationals and their core family members (spouse and children up to the age of 25 who are unmarried and living in the house of their parents):[11]
- Interpreters or other high-profile workers who worked for the Netherlands in the context of an international military or police mission;
- Persons belonging to risk groups (such as NGO personnel, journalists and human rights defenders) who were previously included in evacuation lists, but were not able to reach the airport during the evacuation operation carried out in August 2021;
- Employees of NGOs working in projects directly financed by the Dutch government and were working since January 1, 2018, who contributed structurally and substantially to the projects for at least one year in a public and visible position;
- people who worked for at least one year in a structural and substantial way in a public and visible position for Dutch military troops or EUPOL (applied to the data available on 11 October 2021).
During the military evacuations between 15 and 26 August 2021, 1,860 people were evacuated (both Dutch and Afghan nationals who worked for the Dutch government). Between 26 August 2021 and 4 July 2023, a total of 2,677 people were transferred from Afghanistan to the Netherlands. On 4 July 2023 105 persons were still being considered for transfer to the Netherlands, but their transfer was deemed exceedingly difficult due to (most of) them not possessing a valid travel document.[12]
On 9 December 2021, 15 EU Member States pledged 40,000 resettlement places for Afghan nationals by the end of 2022. Out of this number, the Dutch government agreed to resettle 3,159 Afghans.[13] According to the Dutch government these numbers referred to the people who were already on the evacuation lists and those who were already evacuated, no new persons.[14] In the yearly report regarding migration to and from the Netherlands, the pledge was said to have been ‘fulfilled’.[15] Of the 4,220 evacuated Afghan nationals who were still in the Netherlands on 31 December 2022 (some moved to other countries), 4,170 received a residence permit in an accelerated procedure.[16]
On 14 September 2022 and 22 February 2023, the Council of State ruled that the e-mails rejectingrequests for evacuations of Afghans were formal decisions that could be appealed for those belonging to the groups named in the Letter to the parliament of 11 October 2021,[17] in which the evacuation criteria were summed up.[18] In 2023, dozens of court cases regarding rejections of Afghan asylum requests were published. Untill now, in most of the cases the judge confirmed the rejection, because the asylum seeker did not meet the criteria outlined above. According to the Regional Courts, the Dutch government was free to establish their own criteria, because it had no obligation to evacuate people and the policy was beneficial.[19]
In 2023 there was also some political discussion regarding Afghan guards who worked for the Dutch military, the Dutch embassy or EUPOL. In October 2023 a critical evaluation report of the Dutch evacuation process was published.[20] Subsequently, the Dutch government announced in two letters of December 2023 that they would propose new criteria for the evacuation of these groups at the end of February 2024.[21]
[1] Ministry of Defence, Grenstoezicht, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/2kMGU1b.
[2] Coalition Agreement (Regeerakkoord) 2021 – 2025: Omzien naar elkaar, vooruitkijken naar de toekomst, available in Dutch at: http://bit.ly/3mPnSdX.
[3] IND, Asylum Trends, Appendix 1: Relocation and Resettlement, December 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3uzPxUu.
[4] UNHCR, Frequently asked questions regarding resettlement, accessed on 23 February 2024, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3uJlKsk.
[5] COA, Hervestiging Vluchtelingen, accessed on 23 February 2024, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/48Iyfm9.
[6] Ministry of Justice and Security, Staat van Migratie 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3RUo0FO, 66.
[7] Ministry of Justice and Security, Hervestiging van vluchtelingen naar Nederland, 26 May 2020, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3vzNHDb.
[8] Ministry of Justice and Security, Staat van Migratie 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3RUo0FO, 80.
[9] IND, Information about short stay visa, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3L9fei1.
[10] Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code).
[11] Dutch Parliament, 14 September 2021, 27925-808, Stand van zaken in Afghanistan, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3B0IaUU and Dutch Parliament, 11 October 2021, Kamerbrief ontwikkelingen Afghanistan available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3L9Z5sF.
[12] Central government, Kamerbrief over voortgang overbrengingen Afghanistan, 15 August 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3OwjWL0 and Central government, Kamerbrief over stand van zaken overbrengingen van personen uit Afghanistan, 17 October 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/43074kw.
[13] Euractiv, ‘EU Member States agree to take in 40,000 Afghans’, 10 December 2021, available in English at: https://bit.ly/3orThkm.
[14] Government answer in Parliament, 32 317 JBZ Raad, Nr 738, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3pZxlB1.
[15] Ministry of Justice and Security, Staat van Migratie 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3RUo0FO, 66.
[16] Ministry of Justice and Security, Staat van Migratie 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3RUo0FO.
[17] Dutch Parliament, Kamerbrief ontwikkelingen Afghanistan, 11 October 2021, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3L9Z5sF.
[18] Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2022:2592, 14 September 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3w2XMIP and ECLI:NL:RVS:2023:719, 22 February 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/49wPJ5J.
[19] See for example: Regional Court The Hague, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2023:16743, 7 November 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3HTTeao.
[20] Commissie van Onderzoek Evacuatieoperatie Kaboel, Reconstructie en analyse van de evacuatie uit Kaboel in augustus 2021, 6 October 2023, 90, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3TX977p.
[21] Dutch Parliament, Kamerbrief planning vervolgstappen motie betrekken EUPOL-bewakers en tolken bij traject voor ambassadebewakers, 22 December 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3U5epO2 and Dutch Parliament, Kamerbrief over voortgang uitvoering motie-Piri c.s. over (voormalig) ASG-bewakers, 19 December 2023, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3SntDgh.