THE HAGUE, 31/10/08 - Immigration State Secretary Nebahat Albayrak is abusing her authority to admit illegal immigrants to the Netherlands in very exceptional cases. She has already done this 3,500 times, say staff members of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND).
The IND whistle-blowers have sent an anonymous letter to Party for Freedom (PVV) MP Sietse Fritsma, who himself worked for years at the IND. The documents are also in the hands of the Elsevier.nl, BNR Nieuwsradio and Geenstijl.nl websites.
Albayrak has the so-called 'discretionary authority' to give rejected immigrants a residence permit after all if their situation is 'harrowing.' She can decide for herself what this concept entails. But according to a verdict from the Council of State, the highest administrative court, discretionary authority can only be used on a very small scale. If it is applied on a large scale, concrete criteria must be attached, which must be made public.
Albayrak however granted residence permits on a large scale without applying concrete criteria, the ING whistle-blowers write. Media reports this week said Albayrak used her 'discretionary authority' 350 times in about a year, but the IND staff say 3,500 aliens are involved. "The state secretary behaves like Sinterklaas," they write, referring to the Dutch variant of Santa Claus.
Albayrak perpetrates "arbitrariness and abuse" with her authority to allow rejected asylum-seekers to stay on after all. On top of this, she asks mayors where the aliens involved live not to disclose the awarding of the permit, the whistle-blowers say.
As well as mayors, it is often members of the Lower House who send the state secretary dossiers of aliens with the request to let them in after all. These are immigrants that have been rejected by judges for a residence permit and instructed to leave the country.
The ING staff fear that large groups of rejected asylum-seekers will now go to the judge to try to get a permit as well on the basis of the principle of equality. Fritsma will confront the state secretary with the criticisms in next week's debate on the Justice budget.
