Niemandsland in Nederland. Afgewezen asielzoekers tussen nationaal en lokaal beleid

Samenvatting

No Man's Land in the Netherlands. Rejected Asylum Seekers Caught between National and Local Policy. Since the early 1990s, the Dutch government has taken several measures aiming at a more efficient asylum policy on the one hand and the discouragement of illegal residence in the Netherlands on the other. One of the unintended consequences of the stricter asylum policy is that more and more rejected asylum seekers become illegal immigrants. They are supposed to leave the country, but they do not always do so. Because they have lost their residence rights, they are officially excluded from most public services. At the local level, in the cities where they stay, it is clear that policies-in-practice do not always correspond to the strict rules. Several organizations, both public and private, offer assistance to rejected asylum seekers for various reasons. This chapter focuses on the types of support they offer, and on the dilemmas that these organizations confront, as well as the tensions between different levels of policy making. 1 Table, 16 References. Adapted from the source document.