Disagreements over asylum policy were the reason for the collapse of the Dutch government last July, and the main issue that millions of voters will have on their minds today when they go to the polls. In the final stretch of the campaign, both the candidate of the eco-social democratic alliance (GroenLinks-PvdA), Frans Timmermans, and the centrist Pieter Omtzigt have strongly criticized the “failure” of the immigration policy of the coalition led by the liberal party. VVD to propose, the first, “better management”, and the second, limit the net arrival of foreigners (refugees, economic emigrants or students) to 50,000 a year, a third of the average recorded in recent years.
Many Dutch people decide their vote at the last minute and this year, with the three main candidates very close, the uncertainty about the result is total, although in terms of immigration policy, practically everyone is betting on measures to limit reception numbers. Yesterday afternoon, Geert, a retiree living in Oldebroek, was still hesitant but, as for millions of residents in the ultra-conservative Bible Belt region of the Netherlands, his ballot will be either for the Christian Union (UC) or for the Calvinist party SGP.
“It is good that there is a Christian influence in The Hague. There are other parties that I like but for me that is the fundamental thing,” confides this voter while working in the garden of his house, a charming traditional construction with a thatched roof from 1841. The town of Oldebroek has been in the eye of the hurricane since months ago because of strong local opposition to the Government's plans to build a new center for asylum seekers. “As Christians, we must help people, but within certain proportions,” he believes.
Therein lies the key to the problem: the lack of means at the national level to respond to demand and the problems for each region to do its part. According to data from the state asylum agency published in 2022, the efforts of Dutch municipalities to welcome asylum seekers have been very uneven over the last 10 years. More than half of the total, especially the richest, have not offered any type of reception, while in the north, in the province of Groningen, the Ter Apel reception center is overflowing. The strict Christian communities of the Bible Belt are among the least open in the country to hosting these facilities.
On Oldebroek Street where the center is planned to be built, expanding an old hostel in a protected area, many residents resist the initiative and have marked their gardens with signs that make clear their opposition to it, but prefer not to speak to the press. “They don't like how the issue is being treated. It seems as if we are rich selfish people who only want to protect our properties instead of helping people who need it,” explains Jannetta Dorsman, spokesperson for the Geen AZC platform, who recalls that the town has welcomed refugees in the past and the experience It wasn't always good.
“If you ask people here if they want to help war refugees, everyone will say yes,” but the new center, he maintains, would welcome economic immigrants. "Single men, minors from safe countries in North Africa, and we already know what happens in other cities when these types of people get together, that robberies, assaults, intimidation of young women occur... That is why no city council wants have them". Furthermore, he continues, the area is not ideal for people coming from conflict zones: the Dutch army carries out daily maneuvers with real explosives, which "can harm the mental health of these migrants," warns the neighborhood spokesperson, who insists in the “disproportion” of wanting to install 350 foreign people, double the residents of the street in question.
"The redistribution of asylum seekers between the different territories is something that must be done, by law, it is not something optional. In Groningen we have a great tradition of reception and we have done it without discussion, but others do not and this creates problems. For "There are people sleeping on the street in Ter Apel," says Glimina Chakor, GroenLinks-Pvda candidate for this province, the northernmost in the Netherlands. "We don't want that to happen, we want to be able to treat them properly and resolve each case quickly. Right now people are in limbo for too long," Chakor, of Sahrawi descent, explained on Sunday while going door to door handing out leaflets in a middle-class neighborhood in Groningen.
Griet, a Calvinist, conservative voter and owner of a house near the potential center in Oldebroek, is not opposed to the initiative. “That's why I haven't put any signs in the garden,” she clarifies. She had no problems when young people were housed in that center years ago. And “as Christians, there are very clear guidelines for how we should treat outsiders. If I had to flee from a war, I would also want help,” says this voter. “But there must be limits, the reception should be temporary, as with the Ukrainians,” says this voter, aware however that wars and inequalities are not as easy to put up and take down as a flag.
