Maximum efforts to reduce IND backlog will continue this year

As of 31 December 2020, the task force had closed around 8,200 requests for asylum from the accumulated work of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND). This according to a letter from Minister for Migration Broekers-Knol, which was presented to the House of Representatives on Thursday. In the coming months, the task force will need to process some 7,000 remaining applications. The task force was established last March for the purpose of helping the IND work through its backlog of over 15,000 applications. In 2021, like last year, IND and the task force will make every effort to eliminate the IND backlog and to render a decision on asylum applications within the statutory term.

Minister for Migration Broekers-Knol:

“The goal was to provide every applicant with a clear answer before the end of 2020. While we have succeeded in part, there are unfortunately still many people who are awaiting clarity. We are doing everything in our power to notify those people of a decision as quickly as possible, so that they can get on with their lives.” 

Progress and new applications for asylum

The task force was created in order to complete the processing of asylum applications submitted prior to 1 April 2020 as quickly as possible, while paying due regard to the criteria of diligence and care, security and feasibility. An update on the task force's progress is published on the IND website each month.

In the period between 1 April and 31 December 2020, the IND received 9,200 new asylum applications and 1,170 repeat applications. The IND's goal is to process new applications for asylum as quickly and carefully as possible within the statutory term. To date, a decision has been rendered on forty-five per cent of those applications. In twenty cases, that decision was taken outside the statutory term because the file was connected to applications from the task force backlog. This pertains, for example, to applications for newborn babies whose parents had previously submitted applications for asylum which are being processed by the task force.