Faced with the sheer volume of asylum applications, the immigration service is forced to turn some applicants away from its offices with a view to registering them at a later date.
This was first reported by Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, the Flemish refugee council, and later confirmed by the Immigration Service.
An employee of Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen, Thomas Willekens, had raised the issue on Monday, when he realised that some people had been instructed to return on 22 January after queuing up that morning outside the registration offices on Rue Belliard, where asylum applications are handed in.
This means going for some a number of weeks - among the coldest of the year - without a housing solution, Willekens noted. "It's a flagrant violation of the right to asylum," he said in a post on Bluesky. According to Willekens, some families are also affected.
While the situation is not usual, it is not exceptional either. "Most of the time, we register all applications on the same day, but it can happen that we have to issue re-invitations, because there is a high number of applications, because there has been statutory leave, or because staff are ill," Immigration Office Spokesperson Dominique Ernould explained. Despite efforts to move staff internally, to the registration department, the number of applications still exceeds the service's capacity to register them without delay, she confirmed.
"This is a critical period, and there are a huge number of asylum applications," she said.
While confirming that people have been invited to apply at a later date after queuing up outside registration offices, the Immigration Service insists that there is a selection process. It is, above all, single men, and, potentially, people applying for family reunification who are made to wait. Applicants considered more vulnerable are given priority, it said.
Nicole de Moor, Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, also stressed this point.
Reacting in a mid-afternoon press release, she said 369 people had been waiting to register at Rue Belliard on Monday. "Families who need a place to stay are registered the same day," she said. "That was also the case today."
