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The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (Centraal Orgaan opvang Asielzoekers – COA) is the authority responsible for the accommodation of asylum seekers and thus manages the reception centres. Normally asylum seekers who enter the Netherlands by land have to apply at the Central Reception Centre (Centraal Opvanglocatie, COL) in Ter Apel, where they should stay for a maximum of three days. The COL is not designed for a long stay. If applicants arrive during the weekend, they will have access to night reception until registration on the first working day.
After this stay at the COL, the asylum seeker is transferred to a Process Reception Centre (Proces Opvanglocatie, POL). An asylum seeker remains in the POL if the IND decides to examine the asylum application in the Regular Procedure (within eight days). If protection is granted, the asylum seeker is transferred to a Centre for Asylum Seekers (Asielzoekerscentrum, AZC) before receiving housing in the Netherlands. If the IND decides to handle the application in the extended asylum procedure, the asylum seeker will also be transferred from the POL to an AZC. Asylum seekers and beneficiaries of protection who have not yet been housed are hosted in collective centres. Currently, no option to access individual housing is provided by the authorities.
The Netherlands experienced various reception crises, one of which in 2015, while the latest started in September 2021. Whereas the reception crisis experienced in 2015 was due to an unexpected and very high number of new arrivals of asylum seekers, the current one could have been prevented, had the government anticipated the possibility of having to manage an increase in the number of new arrivals. Instead, many reception centres were closed as soon as the number of arriving asylum seekers dropped, which caused the current shortage of asylum reception places.[1] Some people have been sleeping on the floor inside the waiting room of IND in Ter Apel for over 2 days with no showers or beds available while waiting for a transfer to one of the many (Crisis) Emergency Reception Centres that opened (and closed) around the country from September 2021 onwards. The reception crisis continued throughout 2023.
[1] This has also been confirmed by the ACVZ and ROB (Raad voor het Openbaar Bestuur). In their report they state that the reception crisis is a self-made crisis by the Dutch government: ‘Asielopvang uit de crisis’, 14 June 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3ik1OGw.