Deportations to Algeria resumed, the Netherlands is allowed to detain foreigners

NOS News•today, 4:06 PM

The Netherlands may place Algerians without the right of residence in detention in the run-up to their deportation. The Council of State has determined this, referring to the fact that Algeria at the end of last year took back a number of compatriots who were staying illegally in the Netherlands.

The council considered the situation of two Algerian migrants. One man challenged his detention last fall after he stated that the Netherlands would not be able to deport him within a reasonable period. The judge ruled in his favor. The other migrant was also detained and put forward the same argument at the end of last year, but was told that there was indeed a prospect of deportation again.

To gain more clarity about the rights of Algerian migrants in the Netherlands, outgoing State Secretary Van der Burg (Asylum) filed an appeal in the first case and the unsuccessful Algerian migrant did so in the second case. The Council of State has now rejected both appeals because it assesses the October situation significantly differently than that of December.

Figures provided by Van der Burg show that after years of difficult negotiations, Algeria has again been issuing the travel documents that compatriots need to travel to Algeria since the end of last year. These laissez-passers are necessary because identity documents such as passports and driving licenses are often not available.

Last year, the Netherlands applied for travel documents for a total of 141 suspected Algerians. According to Van der Burg, the appointment of a new Algerian consul has ensured that the country is again granting requests after years. In October, Algeria issued a laissez-passer for one person, and in December for three. In all four cases, deportation to Algeria actually followed.

This single approval in October is insufficient proof for the Council of State that there are deportations on a “structural basis”, but with the three deportations in December, a different picture emerges. From that moment on, the administrative judge sees “sufficient concrete grounds to expect that foreigners with Algerian nationality could be deported to Algeria within a reasonable period (…)”.

This means that, after years of legal and diplomatic battles, the Netherlands may place Algerians who are not entitled to stay in immigration detention in the run-up to their return journey. It is not clear whether migrants were deported to Algeria again in the first months of this year. In the ruling, the council only shares the figures for 2023.

Algerians have been in the top 10 of people applying for asylum in the Netherlands for years. Initially, the country was on the list of safe countries of origin, making applications from Algerians virtually hopeless. But in 2021, the government removed the country from that list again due to concerns about human rights violations, especially in the areas of freedom of expression and freedom of association.

This means that Algerian asylum seekers have since been going through the regular asylum procedure instead of the accelerated one. They are also no longer dependent on the austere reception, intended for asylum seekers from safe countries who can expect their asylum application to be rejected in the short term. The fact that Algeria is no longer on that list does not mean that the chances of obtaining residence papers increase, Van der Burg immediately warned in 2021. Rounded off, the percentage of granted asylum applications did not exceed 0 last year.