Employees of the Dutch Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) have claimed they work in fear of “underage” migrants they say use refugee reception homes as a base while they commit crimes.
The unnamed employees claim that many migrant homes across the Netherlands are filled with goods that have been stolen by allegedly underage migrants, primarily from North African countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.
“Everyone is done with them, including the employees, themselves. They destroy things, they fight over and over, and they steal anything they can,” one of the employees told Dutch newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden.
Many of the migrants show up and simply say they are underage, while the employees say in reality, many are not and carry false identity documents. One employee stated some do not have any documents at all, saying: “They are then assured that they will have shelter until they are 18. They just try it and often it works.”
While the concern among the employees over the migrants is widespread, few report their activities with one of the sources claiming that they are shouted at and labelled racists if they express concern. “That hurts because we are trying to do our best for refugees,” they said.
Migrants claiming to be underage while actually being adults has been a significant problem in several European countries since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015.
A report released in January in the French department of Côte-d’Or revealed that only 20 per cent of those migrants claiming to be underage were actually under the age of 18. Sweden in 2017 saw similar reports as well after testing knee joints and wisdom teeth of migrants claiming to be children.
French authorities have also taken down criminal networks linked to the forging of documents migrants use to claim they are underage.