Task Force deals with 8,200 applications for asylum
The Task Force set up in March 2020 to help the IND catch up with more than 15,000 applications for asylum completed 8,200 asylum applications in 2020. So far State Secretary Broekers-Knol in a letter* to the House of Representatives on Thursday. In the next few months, some 7,000 old asylum applications will still have to be processed. Besides, all efforts aim at deciding on new asylum applications within the statutory period.
State Secretary Broekers-Knol: "Providing all applicants with clarity before the end of 2020 was our aim. We have partly succeeded in doing so, but, alas, there are still people waiting for clarity. We are committed to giving them a definitive answer in the shortest possible time as well so that they too can get on with their lives."
Progress and new applications for asylum
The Task Force aims at processing the asylum applications predating 1 April 2020 by mid-2021 at the latest. Care, safety, and practicability are paramount here. A monthly update on the Task Force's progress will be published on the website of the IND.
New applications
From 1 April to 31 December 2020, 9,200 new asylum applications and 1,170 repeated applications were submitted. The IND aims at processing new asylum applications as quickly and carefully as possible within the statutory period. By now, 45% of those applications have been decided. Twenty cases were decided outside the statutory period; the reason being that they are related to applications from the Task Force stock. Examples include applications from new-borns whose parents already submitted an asylum application that is being dealt with by the Task Force.
*Only in Dutch