Netherlands: The Opportunism of a Dutch Refugee Agency

Hat tip Ongehoord Nederland. Translation by Fousesquawk.

The below article by Jan Omvlee in the conservative Dutch news outlet, Ongehoord Nederland, exposes how one Dutch refugee agency is taking advantage of the crisis at the Belarus border with Poland (not to mention Latvia and Lithuania) to bring more asylum-seekers from the Middle East to the Netherlands. Omvlee also notes that most asylum-seekers wind up in reception centers in rural communities where the majority of voters do not support the policies of the leftist parties that push this never-ending refugee program.

 https://www.ongehoordnederland.nl/migrantencrisis-in-oost-europa-legt-links-onderbuikgevoel-bloot/

Migrant crisis in Eastern Europe  exposes gut feeling of the left

Jan Omvlee, 26 November 2021

The Dutch Refugee Foundation is giving aid to hundreds of migrants who have illegally crossed the Polish border from Belarus. The need is great, they say.

Within a few week's time, an estimated 7,000 residents of various countries in the Middle East have flown into the Belarusan capital of Minsk. The Belarusan president, Alexander Lukashenko, is using them in his fight against the economic sanctions placed against him by the European Union following human rights violations. Upon arrival, the travelers get help from the security forces to illegally cross the barbed-wire border with Poland and the Baltic states. 

To condemn migration or not?

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, calls the migrant flow a "hybrid attack", which has as its aim to destabilize the EU. She also expresses her support for the EU-member states that border Belarus and refuse to allow the migrant flow.

The idea that the migrant flow should be condemned as an attack against the EU, however, cannot count on much enthusiasm from the Second Chamber (Dutch Parliament, House of Representatives). In mid-November, a letter sent by the foreign commissions of 17 European parliaments to Von der Leyen and NATO secretary Stoltenberg was not supported by the House because the D66 (party) and the leftist parties did not want to be too strict in regards to asylum law. Member Kati Piri (PVDA) explained this vote against (the letter) by pointing out that the letter proposed adapting the "existing legal order" to situations in which illegal migration is used as a weapon. "If we make an exception to the Belarusan border area with Poland and Lithuania, we throw the entire refugee treaty in the trash," said Piri. In other words: The right for people to request asylum in EU member states cannot be compromised, even when used as political pressure by hostile neighbor states.

Tineke Ceelen

For the Dutch Refugee Foundation, the widening of activity to Poland offers new opportunities for fundraising, especially now that the crisis is in the media spotlight. Tineke Ceelen, since 2003 director of the Refugee Foundation, wandered along the Polich eastern border and tweeted about the bad weather conditions and the dangers the refugees face in the forested border area. Belarus is not the cause of the misery, he finds, rather the victim, Poland. The country is callously closing its eyes to the human suffering on its own border. Poland is sending automatic text messages to all cell phones in the border zone, in which refugees are warned in English to go back to Belarus. Ceelen also thinks that the Polish military and police are being very intimidating, including the use of tear gas. 

No repeat of 2015

Polish steadfastness, however, is all that keeps Europe from a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis when hundreds of thousands flowed into Europe via Greece. That this time many women and children are seen is mostly thanks to the red carpet Belarus rolled out. The migrants were promised a safe and easy way to reach Germany without having to cross thousands of kilometers or having to make a dangerous sea crossing. 

Annual income

Many migrants have spent almost a year's Iraqi income to sleep overnight in a tent in an improvised campground. That the migrants are poor and in need of help is mainly a result of their own choices. Iraq is sending planes this week to bring back asylum-seekers who are giving up. That directly raises the question of what the reason was to leave home and hearth. In any case, their lives were not in danger in Iraq, the main reason for asking for asylum in the EU. 

Complaining left

The leftist gut feeling, however, places the blame for the misery on us, Europeans. An oft-heard argument is that economic migrants must be allowed in because they have no prospects for a better future in their own country. However, the question is seldom asked of the migrants and their home countries if it would not be much better to invest a year's income for a useful education or a business.

Suction effect

The justified fear of a "sucking effect" of a generous asylum policy is invariably dismissed as an extreme right-wing illusion, but this year, as of September,  21,780 asylum-seekers and (later their relatives) came to the Netherlands. The Central Agency for the reception of asylum-seekers, which spends almost 28,000 euros for each asylum-seeker per year, is always desperate for more reception locations. The asylum-seekers, in one way or another, come to mainly small, rural communities where very few people vote Green-Left or D66. A naive leftist asylum policy-that rattles on all sides- is thus, passed on to the people who did not choose it.