"You still do not apply for family reunification, while running your own request," Dyke Secretary Hoff wrote in a letter to asylum seekers in the Netherlands. But how does family reunification mean?
As a refugee in the Netherlands receive an asylum permit (or a residence permit based on asylum), he or she has three months to apply for family reunification, explains a spokesperson for Refugees from Netherlands. This must apply to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND). The IND will check out what members are family.
Only nuclear family
Only the so-called 'nuclear family' are eligible for family reunification. Those are the spouse / partner of the refugee who is in the Netherlands and the biological children and the foster or adopted children who are already part of the family in the country of origin.
The laggards have to prove the family relationship. In most cases, they do so at the embassy in a neighboring country. If that fails through documents (because they are not in order), which can also via DNA.
Self-pay
Family reunification is only for a certain group of refugees affordable. Nearly all costs are for the refugees themselves. That goes for the travel to a neighboring country, the stay in that neighboring country, it may be charged by authorities to leave the country and the cost of plane tickets to go to the country's reunification.
Refugees does have a fund to pay a contribution for family reunification. "But the bigger the group, the smaller the amount that can be allocated per family," says the spokesperson for Refugees Netherlands.
RTL News / © Reuters
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