The Dutch cabinet is expected to agree on three replacement asylum measures at its weekly meeting on Friday, two and a half weeks after the senate voted down a controversial flagship bill from the previous government.

The proposals include easier punishments and deportations for refugees, ending fines for violations made by the immigration service IND, and criminalising being in the Netherlands without residence papers – punishable by up to six months in prison.

Senators rejected the asylum emergency measures bill, which was drafted by former asylum minister Marjolein Faber of the anti-immigration PVV, on April 21 after a separate amendment that would have shielded people helping undocumented migrants from prosecution fell by one vote.

Prime Minister Rob Jetten, leader of the centrist social-liberal D66, promised shortly after to bring forward new measures within two weeks. Asylum Minister Bart van den Brink of the CDA has since said he wants to “restore” all three parts of the bill that did not pass.

The easier measures

The first measure would widen the legal grounds on which migrants can be declared “undesirable” and removed from the country, news outlet Hart van Nederland reported. Asylum seekers who cause trouble “can also be given a prison sentence” under the change, Van den Brink told De Telegraaf in an interview ahead of the cabinet meeting.

A second measure would scrap the periodic penalties the immigration service IND has to pay when it fails to decide asylum claims within the legal six-month limit.

The IND paid out €79 million in such penalties in 2025, more than double the previous year’s figure, according to its annual report. The orthodox Protestant SGP and far-right JA21 plan to introduce that change as an amendment to a separate bill on detention of foreign nationals due to be debated in the lower house in May.

D66, the largest party in the three-party minority coalition, has so far refused to back that approach. The party’s senate group argued the criminalisation clause could apply to anyone in the Netherlands without valid residence papers, including overstayers and people whose visas have lapsed.

A separate package of changes, including shorter asylum permits and tighter family reunification rules, comes into force in June via the EU Migration Pact. Today’s announcement covers measures the pact does not address.

The proposals come amid a wave of violent protests at sites earmarked for asylum reception. Police were pelted with fireworks at a demonstration in Apeldoorn on Tuesday, the latest in a series of disturbances at proposed refugee accommodation in Loosdrecht, IJsselstein and Aalsmeer. Far-right MPs have been joining the marches.