Roundup: No asylum applicant in Netherlands identified as IS member

The Dutch authorities announced Monday that no asylum applicant in the country has been identified as member of Islamic State (ISIS) up till now, but the Paris attacks have led to consultation with relevant departments to decide whether more measures should be taken.

"Screening of the applicants has already been intensified since the growing refugee influx, but the Paris attacks have led to a lot of consultation with relevant departments. Based on this we will decide whether further measures should be taken," announced Rob van Lint, chief director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) at a press briefing organized by the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice near a refugee shelter in the eastern border region of the country.

"Up till now, we have not identified any registered refugee as a member of ISIS," said Van Lint. "However, the chance that someone with terrorist intent or plans reports himself in a refugee flow is very small, because in that case he would have to register. Someone like that would try to enter the Schengen zone or the Netherlands in a different way."

The IND is responsible for assessing asylum applications in the Netherlands. The chief director said that a very important part of their work is being on the alert for signs indicating that someone might have committed war crimes in his country of origin. Under the UN Refugee Convention, people who have committed war crimes do not have the right to be granted asylum in another country.

"IND employees should also recognize signals that indicate someone is a risk for the national safety, for example because of jihadism or extremism," van Lint told the press.

Employees of the IND are trained and educated to recognize these signals on the basis of information provided by refugees through question lists and interviews. They can decide whether a refugee should be further investigated. Specialists are also present for support and if the observed signals prove to be serious, specialized departments will be alerted and take over the research.

"In the past, there have been signals that refugees could be a risk to the national security or have a criminal past. The special unit has handled these cases," said van Lint.

The IND also cooperates with other services, such as the police, public prosecutor, military police, security services, etc. "It is very important to distinguish at the very beginning of the procedure, already during the first days, whether people are a risk for the Dutch society or have committed war crimes. We absolutely do not want to have these people in the Netherlands," emphasized van Lint in an interview with Xinhua.

In the last three weeks the number of asylum seekers reaching The Netherlands stayed stable around 1700 and 1800. "This is an extraordinary high number compared to what we have been used to for a long time. For the whole year [2015] we expect between 50,000 and 60,000, which is much higher than before," said van Lint.

In 2014, nearly 24,000 requests for asylum were submitted in the Netherlands, an increase by 66 percent relative to 2013 and the highest number since 2002, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Last year, the number of requests submitted by Syrians rose to 9500, nearly 40 percent of the total. The number of stateless people reached nearly 2800, mostly Palestinians from Syria. 4000 came from Eritrea.

Under the Dutch law, the refugee is entitled to take a period of rest and preparation (at least 6 days) after the first part of the process of application and registration and before being interviewed. Normally the rest period will take a few weeks, but with the current big influx, the waiting time can take up to 5 to 6 months.

After the interview, the general asylum procedure normally takes 8 days to decide whether or not the refugee will get asylum. Thirty percent of the cases would need further investigation and lead to an extended asylum procedure.

For the police, refugees' prolonged waiting could also cause more trouble. "With big groups of young people together, when boredom sets in, we could get many more incidents, many more mutual irritations that can lead to all kinds of unpleasant offenses where we as police would be called in for," said Max Daniel, General Commander of the National Staff for Large-scale Special Action (NSGBO) of the Dutch police.

After the Paris attacks, the Dutch police proceeded to maximum readiness and applied extra surveillance in and around asylum seekers' shelters. "Possibly certain people would express their anger and frustration related to what happened in Paris in the areas of asylum seekers' shelters. We absolutely did not want that, and it actually did not happen," Daniel told Xinhua.

He added that police will stay alert and invest maximally in the fabric of society. "We expect community police officers and basic teams to have maximum contact with citizens. If something happens, we hope that signals from within the society will come to us before misery actually takes place," he said. Endit