Tuesday, 27
May 2025 - 14:30
Asylum
Minister can't force Amsterdam to scrap overnight shelter for undocumented
people
Asylum
Minister Marjolein Faber was not allowed to stop Amsterdam from offering
overnight shelter to undocumented migrants, the administrative court ruled in
28 cases on Monday. “The Minister must now consider each person individually to
see how to proceed. Until then, they may temporarily remain in the shelter
offered by the municipality of Amsterdam, which the responsible Minister must
pay for,” the court said.
This
involves the bed-bath-bread regulation, for which Faber wanted to cut the
funding as of January 1 of this year. The undocumented people who use these
shelters in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen, Eindhoven, and Utrecht are
typically vulnerable people with physical or mental health problems.
Faber
decided to cut funding for these shelters on January 1, arguing that the people
who use them are not entitled to a residency permit and “should have left a
long time ago.” 28 people who used the Amsterdam overnight shelter took the
matter to court.
According to
the court, “these 28 people have demonstrated that they will not be able to
provide their own bed, bath, and bread if the shelter is terminated, and will
therefore run a great risk of inhumane or degrading treatment.”
Faber should
not have terminated the shelter of these 28 people without further
investigation, the court ruled. The only alternative the Minister offered them
was the restrictive location in Ter Apel, where asylum seekers who have
exhausted all legal remedies can receive basic shelter provided that they
cooperate in their deportation. According to the court, it is unclear whether
this location even had space to accommodate the 28 people in the Amsterdam
shelter, and she failed to investigate whether they were physically and
mentally able to cooperate in their deportation.
“The
condition to cooperate in returning to the country of origin may in principle
be imposed on a foreigner who is granted shelter, but not in all cases, for
example, if someone is mentally unable to foresee the consequences of their
actions,” the court said. “If the condition to cooperate in returning is
imposed for admission to the [Ter Apel restricted location], then, as a safety
net, a form of shelter that is unconditional will also always be needed. After
all, the national government has the duty to ensure that this group of people
does not end up in an inhumane situation.”
The court
ordered Faber to find a solution for each of the 28 people individually and pay
for their temporary shelter in Amsterdam until then.
Courts
previously also ordered Faber to continue funding bed-bath-bread shelters in
Utrecht and Rotterdam after January 1.
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