The Belgian government has created a new asylum centre to facilitate the deportation of fake refugees who have already applied for asylum in another European country.
The new centre, located just over six miles from Brussels, was opened late last month and is the first of its kind for migrants who have already applied for asylum in another European Union member-state. The bloc’s Dublin agreement on such migrants should allow Belgium to deport the migrants to the first EU member they entered.
There is room for 220 migrants in the new centre, which has been built as a way to relieve the pressure on the Belgian asylum reception system, which has become overwhelmed in recent months.
The office of the new Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, stated that over half of the asylum seekers who arrive in Belgium had already passed through another European Union member-state, the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.
“More than half of the asylum seekers who arrive in Belgium have already passed through another member-state of the European Union. Last year, there were 11,000. Between January and July of this year, they are already nearly 8,000,” the office stated.
Very few migrants who are eligible for deportation to another European Union member-state under the Dublin agreement are actually deported, with InfoMigrnats claiming the number is only around three per cent.
Belgium’s Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (Fedasil) has had difficulties accommodating migrants since last year, when major flooding saw damages to reception centres and many Belgians affected by the floods needing to use the accommodation themselves.
Mass migration is now the driving force of Belgium’s population growth, with a 2021 report claiming that as many as one-third of the country’s population now come from migrationt backgrounds.