Jetten promises new restrictions on asylum in two weeks

Prime minister Rob Jetten has promised to draw up new restrictions on asylum within two weeks, after the Senate voted down a bill to tighten the system on Tuesday.

Jetten described the vote as a “real missed opportunity” and accused the far-right PVV of “political sabotage” by voting against measures that were drafted by the party’s own asylum minister in the last government, Marjolein Faber.

The law would have made it an offence for asylum seekers to live in the Netherlands illegally, so that people whose claims had been rejected could be arrested and deported more easily.

The PVV objected to a clause that was added by justice minister David van Weel clarifying that people who supported illegal refugees would not face criminal charges.

The Christian Democrats (CDA) and the orthodox Protestant SGP withdrew their support for the bill after the clause was defeated by a single vote, with the PVV voting against.

Jetten’s own D66 party also voted against the plans, which one of its senators, Boris Dittrich, described as “unnecessarily harsh and unworkable”.

“Undesirable aliens”

“In the last week the minister and I looked at whether we could persuade any senators who had doubts to change their minds, but unfortunately we couldn”t,” Jetten said.

The coalition government, which includes D66 and CDA, had hoped to pass the law in the Senate in order to relieve the overcrowded asylum system, despite their reservations about the provisions of the bill. D66 MPs, including Jetten, voted against the bill when it was passed by the lower house last March.

The prime minister said the cabinet would “take responsibility” by presenting a new slate of reforms in two weeks’ time.

Asylum minister Bart van den Brink wants to broaden the definition of “undesirable aliens” as an alternative to making illegal residence a crime, to target people who resist efforts to deport them.

The government also wants to abolish the penalties that the immigration service IND has to pay to asylum seekers whose applications are not processed within six months.

Last year the IND had to pay a total of €79 million in penalties as the average waiting time climbed to 67 weeks.

The same figures showed that the total number of asylum applications fell from 32,000 to 24,000 in the last year, while 36% of requests for asylum were granted, down from 58%.