Author
The Immigration Office is the authority responsible for the registration of asylum applications and for establishing the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection. The registration of the asylum application can either be done at the Registration Centre of the Immigration Office in Brussels, at the border upon arrival or in a prison or closed detention facility. On 24 October 2024, the Registration Centre for international protection moved from Pachecolaan 44 to Belliardstraat 68 in Brussels.[1] During the first weeks after the move, the overall security situation for applicants waiting to enter the registration centre raised concerns. The centre is situated right next to a four-lane motorway and a cycling lane intensively used by commuters. Combined with the high number of persons wanting to make an application in October and November, this led to some tension.[2] In January 2025 the Immigration Office started with a test project, opening the doors earlier (from 07:00 instead of 8:30, until 09:00).[3] The new system is evaluated positively and has continued as of time of writing (March 2025).
The registration process
The law foresees a three-stage registration process:
- The person ’makes’ (présente) their application to the Immigration Office within 8 working days after arrival on the territory.[4] An application at the border is made with the Border Police Section of the Federal Police immediately when the person is apprehended at the border and asked about their motives for entering Belgium.[5] The application can also be made in prison with the prison director or in a closed centre with personnel of the Immigration Office. These authorities refer the application immediately to the Immigration Office. Other applicants (the large majority) make their application directly at the Registration Centre in Belliardstraat 68, Brussels. The asylum applicant receives a ‘certificate of presentation’ (attestation de présentation/bewijs van aanmelding) as soon as the application is made, unless the application is lodged on the same moment in which case they immediately receive an annex 26(quinquies) (step 3).[6] Under the law, failure to apply for a residence permit after irregularly entering the country or to apply for international protection within the 8-day deadline constitutes a criterion for determining a ‘risk of absconding’.[7] It is not clear if or to what extent these provisions are currently being applied. The CGRS can also consider non-compliance with this deadline as one of the elements in assessing the credibility of the asylum claim.
- The Immigration Office registers the application within 3 working days after it is made.[8] This can be prolonged up to 10 working days when a large number of asylum applicants arrive at the same time, rendering it difficult in practice to register applications within the 3 working days deadline.[9]
- The asylum applicant ‘lodges’ (introduit) their application either immediately on the day it is made and registered, or as soon as possible after it is made but no later than 30 days after the application has been made.[10] This period may exceptionally be prolonged by way of Royal Decree, which has not occurred so far. When the application is lodged, the asylum applicant receives a ‘proof of asylum application’ certifying their status as a first-time applicant (‘Annex 26’) or a subsequent applicant (‘Annex 26 quinquies’). The Immigration Office informs the CGRS of the lodging of the application.[11]
In practice, applicants who apply at the Registration Centre lodge their application at the same moment as they make the application. They instantly receive the Annex 26. The aim is to avoid unnecessary movements of applicants between the different services and to respect the 3-day time limit of Article 50(2) of the Aliens Act even if confinement is necessary. This system is currently still being applied. Consequently, most applications for international protection are registered and lodged on the same day, also in 2024.
Limitations to the right to apply for asylum
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Immigration Office used an online system for persons who wanted to make an asylum application. This system was stopped in November 2020, after the Brussels court of first instance found it to be unlawful.[12] Since then, it is only possible to make an application in person.
Since 2021 there have been limitations on access to the procedure for international protection, mostly due to limited registration capacity of the Registration Centre.[13] The available registration capacity on a given day depends on the profile and number of persons wanting to make an application, the available interpretation services and the available staff of the Immigration Office.[14] If the number of persons wishing to make an application for international protection exceeds the maximum registration capacity, the Immigration Office works with a priority system. Vulnerable persons such as families with children, single women and non-accompanied minors are allowed to enter the Registration Centre first. If the registration capacity has not been reached, single men can enter to make their application. As soon as the maximum capacity of the day has been reached, the remaining single men are given a non-individualised invitation to return on a later day.[15] The Immigration Office has up to a maximum of ten working days to register an application.[16] On several occasions since 2021, the Immigration Office has given such invitations to come back on another day. These were mostly given to single men. However, on some days, when the number of vulnerable persons wanting to make an application already exceeded the available registration capacity, it was also given to families with children. In that case, the Immigration Office effectively inquires with these families whether they have a place to stay.[17] If this is not the case, the Immigration Office allows these families to enter immediately that day. The invitation to come back on another moment is not individualised and is thus not considered as proof of making an asylum application by any other Belgian government institution, such as Fedasil (the federal agency responsible for the reception of asylum applicants). Since Fedasil requires an annexe 26 or other proof of making an asylum application before allowing access to the reception network, persons who receive an appointment to come back at a later time do not have access to reception during that waiting time. This practice is not in conformity with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which states that a person must be considered an applicant for international protection as soon as they present this request to the relevant authorities; as of this moment, the person must be granted the rights to which an asylum applicant is entitled, such as the right to reception.[18] This has been confirmed by the Brussels Court of first instance in a judgment of 29 June 2023, in which the Belgian State was condemned for not respecting the right to access the asylum procedure:
(translation from French) ‘While the Court can understand that it is not possible to register every application for international protection on the same day as it is made, which is not required by the applicable provisions nor claimed by the applicants, it is inadmissible that some people were obliged to sleep outside the building for several days in a row in the hope that the next day they would be able to enter the building so that a certificate of presentation could be issued to them in accordance with Article 50 §2 of the Law of 15 December 1980. (…) Indeed, as long as the person concerned has not been issued with a document certifying that he has presented himself, not only will he not be able to claim material aid, but the following delays, set by the Directive and the Law of 15 December 1980, will not begin to run: * the 3 (or 10) day time limit within which the responsible authority must register the application; * the time limit for submitting the application, which then determines the start of the time limit within which the responsible authority must rule on the application. (…) The Belgian State’s assertion that the applications were always registered within 3 (or 10) days of their submission, assuming it to be correct, is, in this respect, irrelevant, since it is established, on the basis of the foregoing, that, it has, unjustifiably, delayed the moment at which the person is finally offered the opportunity to submit his application for international protection (even though this stage does not require the completion of any particular administrative formality) and, consequently, the running of all subsequent legal deadlines.’[19]
In the fall and winter of 2024, the registration capacity decreased because of long term absentees among registration staff and a high number of staff leaving the Immigration Office. In addition, 4,383 applications were registered in October 2024 which put significant pressure on the Immigration Office. This context made it difficult for the Immigration Office to respect the legal time limits.[20] As a result, the Immigration Office regularly gave invitations to return two to three weeks later, thus exceeding the legally allowed ten working days. According to unofficial counts done by Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, 1,811 single men and 210 persons part of a family received an invitation exceeding the legal time limit in November and December of 2024.[21]
Procedure after registration
The international protection department of the Immigration Office is responsible for:
- Receiving, registering and lodging the asylum application;
- Registering the asylum applicant in the so-called ‘waiting register’ (wachtregister/registre d’attente), a provisional population register for foreign nationals (this occurs at the stage of the lodging phase);
- Taking fingerprints and a photograph;
- Conducting the Dublin procedure.
After lodging the application, the applicant is invited to the Immigration Office on a later date for a short interview to establish their identity, nationality and travel route. If there are indications that another country is responsible under the Dublin Regulation, the Immigration Office gathers information to examine which Member State is responsible for the asylum application. To this purpose, a ‘Dublin interview’ is organised during which the applicant is asked about the reasons for not applying in or leaving the other member state, what motivated them to apply in Belgium and other elements that allow to establish the responsible Member State. Since the law does not provide for the presence of a lawyer during interviews at the Immigration Office, lawyers cannot be present during this ‘Dublin interview’.
If Belgium is the responsible country under the Dublin Regulation, the Immigration Office and the asylum applicant, with the help of an interpreter, fill in a questionnaire for the CGRS about the reasons why they fled their country of origin or, in case of a subsequent asylum application, which new elements are being submitted. Afterwards, the file, including this questionnaire, is sent to the CGRS for further examination and a decision. [22] The asylum section of the Immigration Office is furthermore responsible for the follow-up of the asylum applicant’s administrative residence status throughout the procedure as well as the follow-up of the final decision on the asylum application. In case of a negative decision, the Immigration Office will generally issue an order to leave the territory.[23] In case the applicant received a positive decision (granting of refugee status or subsidiary protection status), and unless there is a right of residence on other grounds, they need to register at their commune of residence with either the decision granting them subsidiary protection or refugee certificate issued by the CGRS. The commune will register them in the register for aliens and issue a temporary residence card (‘A-card’, valid 5 years for persons with refugee status and 1 year, prolongable with 2 times 2 years for beneficiaries of temporary protection). For the transposition of this temporary residence permit to a ‘stay for an unlimited period’ after 5 years, the commune, upon request of the beneficiary, needs to ask a prior instruction from the Immigration Office.[24]
For the last few years, there have been significant delays in the asylum procedure at the stage of the Immigration Office due to a high number of cases and understaffing issues. Even though the lodging takes place no later than 30 days after the application has been made, in line with the relevant legal standards, in certain cases the first interview is conducted more than several months later. After a decrease in the backlog of cases at the Immigration Office in 2023, the backlog increased again in 2024, from 7,722 pending applications to 12,888 in December 2024.[25] Consequently, waiting times for the first interview at the Immigration Office, especially for cases in which the Dublin procedure is not applied, remain significant, with sometimes a few weeks or even months before the first interview.[26]
[1] Immigration Office, ‘Registration Centre for International Protection: New Location!’, 23 October 2024, available in English here.
[2] Federal Chamber of representatives, Commission of Internal Affairs, Security, Migration and Administrative matters, CRIV 56 COM 046, 27 November 2024, p. 2-4, available here.
[3] Federal Chamber of representatives, Commission of Internal Affairs, Security, Migration and Administrative matters, CRIV 56 COM 068, 15 January 2025, p. 3, available here.
[4] Article 50(1) Aliens Act. The applicant must make/present the application within 8 working days of arrival in Belgium. Although in the context of the asylum procedure, no sanction is applied if the applicant does not make the application within 8 working days of arrival in Belgium, a long delay may raise questions about the reality of their fear, and they might have to explain in the course of their asylum procedure why they have waited so long to ask for protection.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Article 50(2) Aliens Act.
[7] Articles 1(11) and 1(2)(1) Aliens Act.
[8] Article 50(2) Aliens Act.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Article 50(3) Aliens Act.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Brussels Court of First Instance, Decision nr. 2020/105/C of 5 October 2020, available in French here.
[13] See the previous AIDA updates from 2021, 2022 and 2023 for an overview of this situation.
[14] Immigration Office, ‘Myria: Contact Meeting International Protection’, 21 September 2022, available here, 9.
[15] Immigration Office, ‘Making an application for international protection’, consulted on 22/01/2025, available here.
[16] Article 50, §2 Aliens Act.
[17] In their right of reply, the Immigration Office notes that the aim is to give priority to single men who may be in a more vulnerable position than some families who already have a right of residence in Belgium – e.g., through family reunification.
[18] EU Court of Justice, Commission vs. Hungary, 17 December 2020, §97, available in English here; EU Court of Justice, C‑36/20 PPU, 25 June 2020, available in English here, §91-94: ’Lastly, it is important to note again that recital 27 of that directive states that third-country nationals and stateless persons who have expressed a wish to apply for international protection are applicants for international protection, and that they should therefore comply with the obligations, and benefit from the rights, under Directives 2013/32 and 2013/33. The second sentence of that recital further states that, to that end, Member States should register the fact that those persons are applicants for international protection as soon as possible. It follows from all of the foregoing that a third-country national acquires the status of an applicant for international protection, within the meaning of Article 2(c) of Directive 2013/32, from the point when he or she ‘makes’ such an application. Whilst it is for the Member State concerned to register the application for international protection, pursuant to the first and second subparagraphs of Article 6(1) of that directive, and the lodging of that application requires, in principle, that the applicant for international protection complete a form provided for that purpose, in accordance with Article 6(3) and (4) of that directive, the act of ‘making’ an application for international protection does not entail any administrative formalities, as the Advocate General observes in point 82 of his Opinion, since those formalities must be observed when the application is ‘lodged’.’
[19] Tribunal of first Instance Brussels, 29 June 2023, nr. 2022/4618/A, available in French here.
[20] Federal Chamber of representatives, Commission of Internal Affairs, Security, Migration and Administrative matters, CRIV 56 COM 046, 27 November 2024, available here, 5-8.
[21] Based on on-site findings done by the NGO Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, that is present at the registration centre on a daily basis.
[22] Articles 51/3-51/10 Aliens Act; Articles 10 and 15-17 Royal Decree on Immigration Office Procedure.
[23] Unless the applicant has a residence permit on another basis, other parallel residence procedures are ongoing or other reasons related to art. 3 ECHR stand in the way of issuing an order to leave the territory.
[24] See Immigration Office, ‘Protection Status’, available in Dutch, French and English here.
[25] Immigration Office, ‘Applications for International protection: monthly statistics December 2024’, p. 12, available in French here.
[26] Based on observations by Startpunt, a field team of the NGO Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, in their contacts with applicants in the context of a legal helpdesk where applicants can come for legal information three times a week.