More than 1,000 asylum-seekers who enter the Netherlands each week have to stay in closed reception centres for up to 48 hours while immigration officials screen each newcomer's case.
Short-term closed institutions are in use but the concept of detention camps for longer-stay asylum-seekers would be "absolutely repugnant" to Dutch society. "The aim of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation service is to move people as quickly as possible out of these prison-like closed reception camps and 85 per cent of all who arrive are taken to open centres before the expiry of the 48-hour deadline," Ms Claartge van Ette of the Netherlands Refugee Council told The Irish Times yesterday.
There are three such reception centres around the Netherlands - one beside Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and two others near the Belgian and German borders, each of which deals with 150 asylum-seekers daily.
Fifteen per cent of cases for asylum are rejected within the 48-hour deadline. Illegal immigrants with no chance of being accepted are escorted on to aircraft or to border crossings back to their original destination or country of transit.
Those who refuse to leave are taken to a special detention compound near Schiphol airport where they must stay until they co-operate with the authorities and agree to leave.