On behalf of the Dutch Research and Documentation Centre (WODC), Mark Klaassen and Peter Rodrigues, both from the Europa Institute, conducted research on the procedure of imposing immigration detention on foreign nationals who have to return to their country of origin.
Foreign nationals who are told they will be detained must receive a well-supported decision on this within six hours. This deadline is too short, especially for the Aliens Police, Identification and Human Trafficking Department (AIVM) and the Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar). As a result, this sometimes prevents a foreign national who has to leave the country from being detained. The study focuses, among other things, on ways to reduce that time pressure.
The researchers argue that the requirements for a detention measure have become increasingly complex. This is partly due to the introduction of the EU Returns Directive and (inter)national case law on that directive. This problem particularly affects the KMar and AVIM who are are often confronted with foreign nationals without lawful residence who are spontaneously apprehended. The six-hour detention period is then too short to produce a well-founded file on such persons. This lack of time is even more pressing when they encounter several foreign nationals at the same time.
