Netherlands to deport 26,000 failed asylum seekers

By STEPHEN CASTLE in Brussels

The Netherlands has cast off its liberal reputation on immigration, deciding to deport around 26,000 failed asylum seekers including many who have lived in the country for years.

The move, which was given the green light by country's parliament, has provoked bitter controversy in a famously tolerant society - one where memories of Dutch deportation of Jews in World War Two remain alive.

The Netherlands has a huge backlog of cases and, in the past, failed asylum seekers faced little threat of being deported. Many went underground, disappearing from official records once their appeals expired and hoping to benefit later from amnesties.

But following the success of the murdered anti-immigration campaigner Pim Fortuyn - who argued that the Netherlands was "full", the centre-right government has taken a new, harder line.

With tension rising over the prospects of the first 3,000 people being deported before the summer, protests have mushroomed and one man who faces the prospect of being expelled from the Netherlands has sewn up his eyes and mouth.

Although all European nations expel rejected asylum-seekers, the scale of the planned deportations makes the Dutch government's actions uniquely divisive.

The new legislation covers anyone who arrived in the Netherlands before 1 April 2001.

Under its provisions around 2,300 people whose cases are judged the most pressing will be given permission to remain in the country but the other 26,000 must leave within three years.

The Dutch Council of Churches has condemned the plan as has the campaigning group, Human Rights Watch, which argues that failed asylum seekers may be forced to return to unsafe areas, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Chechnya.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Dutchman Ruud Lubbers, has also expressed caution, using a TV interview to appeal for the government to be more lenient with hardship cases.

The UNHCR does not oppose the principle of deporting failed asylum seekers but argues that the removal of such a large group raises new issues.

Its spokesman, Diederik Kamers, said: "Our main anxiety concerns people who are refugees and who had to flee their country. This is not the case with these people.

"At the same time, one aspect is whether it is safe enough for these people to return to their countries if there are still parts of those countries that remain unsafe."

With the cases of some failed asylum-seekers dating back more than eight years, Mr Kamers said that the facts of the situation had changed. Though the Taleban were no longer a threat, many areas of the country are unstable.

Political opposition has come from the green-left GroenLinks, the Socialist Party and the small Christian party ChristenUnie also demanded that more asylum seekers to be given an amnesty.

Some opponents of the government plan have called for all those resident in the Netherlands for more than five years to be given the right to stay in the country.

But the Dutch Parliament yesterday rejected a series of motions intended to soften the plans, allowing them through unscathed.

The Dutch Immigration Minister, Rita Verdonk, argues that no-one at risk will be sent home, and said that she will take special account of families with children in determining cases. Departure centres will be made available for those waiting to leave the country.

But during an earlier parliamentary hearing she had to defend her policy from those who likened it to Nazi deportations during World War II.

"We have careful procedures in the Netherlands. This cannot be compared with Jews who were put on a train to the gas chamber," she said.

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