Threat of imposing fines on the Immigration and Naturalization Department: Significant delay in processing asylum applications
The Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) must return to adhering to the legal deadline of six months for processing asylum applications. If this deadline is not respected, asylum seekers are entitled to financial compensation imposed on the state. Since the beginning of January 2024, there are still 18,250 open asylum applications pending.
IND has been struggling for years to cope with the volume of applications. According to the law, an asylum seeker must be informed within six months whether they will be allowed to stay in the Netherlands. In September 2022, the government extended the deadline to 15 months, based on exceptional rules used in cases of sudden and large influxes of applications.
However, the European Court of Justice ruled last May that extensions are only permitted in the case of a sudden and unexpected increase in the number of applications, which was not the case in the Netherlands. The extension was due to a lack of staff and internal delays within the IND, which the court does not consider a valid justification.
Based on this decision, IND has decided on its own to reduce the deadline again to six months, without waiting for the Dutch Council of State's decision expected in early September. Asylum seekers who have been waiting for more than six months are entitled to claim financial compensation of up to €7,500, and a new amount may be imposed if the delay continues. Asylum seekers must initiate the procedures to obtain this compensation themselves.
Currently, the average waiting period for a decision from IND is about 17 months, and this duration is expected to increase in the coming years. The Director-General of IND, Rodia Maas, stated that fines "have counterproductive results" because they cost the department valuable time that could have been used to process applications.
For its part, IND does not apply the deadline reduction to applications submitted before 2024, as it believes that the Council of State will consider the extension of the deadline justified due to the influx of refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine, and the impact of the Corona pandemic on arrival dates. There are still 20,000 asylum seekers from that period awaiting a decision.