Crisis emergency shelters for asylum seekers must also remain open after 1 April. This is what State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Eric van der Burg (VVD) asked the 25 mayors of the Security Council on Thursday, according to ANP news agency. On that date, several municipalities would actually stop crisis care.
Many mayors have already indicated that they will grant Van der Burg’s request. The State Secretary and the Security Council also discussed third-country nationals from Ukraine: some 4,700 refugees who did not originally come from there, but who did flee the raging war there. An arrangement that allows them to stay in the Netherlands expires at the beginning of March. The mayors have asked Van der Burg to extend the measure, to which the minister responded positively.
Read also: The Netherlands is heading for a ‘socially disruptive’ asylum crisis. All possible ways to avert it seem exhausted
Tightness
Van der Burg is looking hard for more reception places. Currently, emergency shelters and regular asylum seekers’ centers are already bursting at the seams. Centers are full and because of the shortage on the housing market, asylum seekers who are entitled to a home often cannot move on because there are no houses available.
The need is high, as thousands of new asylum seekers are expected in the coming months. Reported last week NRC that the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), the IND immigration service, the police and the Ministry of Justice warn of a “socially disruptive asylum crisis”, which could be even more serious than last summer. Van der Burg said earlier this week that he expects 13,000 new reception places to be realized before the summer.
#Van #der #Burg #emergency #shelters #open #April