Dutch Minister of Immigration Eric Van der Burg arrived in Morocco yesterday to negotiate the ongoing file of migration and asylum between the two countries with Morocco’s Minister of Interior Abdelouafi Laftit.
Van der Burg revealed, in statements reported by the Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf”, that the talks with Morocco are “very advanced” on the issues of immigration and asylum, and he said: “We want to do something about unaccompanied Moroccan minors who come to Europe without the opportunity for asylum.”
In order to speed up work on these files, especially the return of immigrants and asylum seekers to Morocco, the Dutch minister confirmed that he had “received a promise” from the Moroccan Interior Minister, Abdelouafi Laftit, to visit the Netherlands “soon.”
Since July 2021, 125 Moroccan asylum seekers have exhausted all stages of the legal application, 83 returned voluntarily and 42 forcibly, 26 of whom were deported through a passport, which is a temporary Moroccan entry document that Morocco had suspended for a long time and the Netherlands aspires to adopt.
According to figures from the same source, there are currently 140 Moroccan asylum seekers in immigration detention centers awaiting deportation to Morocco after issuing documents accepting their return.
On average, 700 Moroccans apply for asylum in the Netherlands every year (720 applications during the past year), but only less than three percent of them have the opportunity to obtain residence permits in the European country.
Hundreds of Moroccans are forced to leave the Netherlands after exhausting all means of obtaining asylum or residency in other European countries, as the Dutch authorities do not know the destination of 70 percent of rejected Moroccan immigrants, of whom 1,126 left last year alone.
Those charged with immigration and asylum are betting on the return of cooperation with Morocco in this field, which will allow them, according to “Da Telegraaf”, the possibility of detaining rejected asylum seekers in temporary residence centers for immigrants awaiting their deportation. The difficulty of the matter is due to the overcrowding that these centers know.
During yesterday’s talks, Abdelouafi Laftit, according to a communication to the Ministry of the Interior, invoked royal instructions for the return of all unaccompanied Moroccan minors whose identity has been fully identified, in full respect for their rights, their higher interests, and the international obligations undertaken by the two parties.
Moroccan-Dutch relations returned to a progressive path after years of “diplomatic estrangement,” especially since May 2022, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands considered the autonomy initiative for the Sahara presented by Morocco in 2007 a serious and credible contribution to the political process sponsored by the United Nations to find a solution to the conflict.
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