Under the legislation, sponsored by the Christian-Democratic government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and approved by a large parliamentary majority, the government has the authority over the next three years to expel 26,000 immigrants who arrived in the Netherlands before April 2001—even if they are longtime residents and have children born in the country, and are awaiting their residency papers. The largest numbers of potential deportees come from Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Defenders of immigrant rights organized early February protests against the bill at the Dutch parliament, denouncing the threat of mass expulsions. Some churches and individual families have offered sanctuary to those facing deportation.

Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk defended the plan, saying it is “humane since it would not break up families, would provide airline tickets and money to returnees,” according to the New York Times.

While seeking to justify the jailing and deportations of thousands of immigrant workers, the Dutch rulers have blamed immigration for the country’s economic stagnation, rising unemployment, and The Hague’s “overburdened” budgets. Right-wing politicians have also alarmingly invoked the “threat” of Islamic clerics coming to the country to attend to the large immigrant Muslim population and undermining “Dutch values,” like measures prohibiting discrimination against women and gays.

Immigration into the Netherlands has substantially increased the last 25 years, rapidly changing the composition of the working class. The Rotterdam Center for Research and Statistics estimates that 70 percent of the population in that city will be made up of immigrants by 2017.

To tackle “the accumulation of social and economic problems,” the Rotterdam authorities announced they no longer intend to house any more asylum-seekers locally, as requested by the national government, not even if these immigrants have official refugee status, according to an online report of Radio Netherlands.

“Just look at the number of illegal immigrants still in the city,” said Verdonk last November, of “people whose asylum application has been turned down, but are still occupying homes where they no longer belong. Just start enforcing deporting them and there’ll be plenty of room.”

In an attempt to keep a close eye on asylum-seekers who may have been denied permits to stay in the country, city authorities in Hertogenbosch have begun handing out special identity cards to undocumented immigrants in exchange for a free bed and meals.

Meanwhile, the national government has set up two large immigration jails with a total of 600 cells near the airports in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.  
 
 
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