German federal police agents were caught on tape dropping off an illegal migrant at night in the Dutch border town of Venlo last month, and the incident sparked fierce public debate weeks later when a florist, whose security camera recorded the event, shared the footage online, Remix wrote on Monday, June 23rd.
The recording shows a German police van arriving in the town around 4 a.m., and stopping only for as long as officers hand a man his suitcase and a large envelope—presumably his documents and expulsion notice—then it drives away, leaving the man behind.
“He sat outside for a few more hours and used my power to charge his phone,” the Dutch florist who captured the scene told the Dutch outlet L1 Nieuws. “We are less than 100 meters from the border here.”
Later, the Dutch Ministry of Asylum and Migration admitted that it was not only aware of such incidents but that they had been going on for years.
According to the ministry spokesman, there are precedents for both “hot” and “cold” transfers of migrants at the German-Dutch border. The former refers to when asylum seekers are physically handed over to Dutch authorities, while “cold transfer” is when no coordination takes place, and it usually happens during the night or early in the morning, as in this case.
At the same time, the ministry defended the legality of the practice, saying that it does not constitute “pushbacks”—illegal under both EU law and international human rights law—because both countries are members of the Schengen area.
However, the Dublin Regulation, which they refer to, only says that the asylum procedure is the responsibility of the country that migrants first set foot in, and that other countries can request to take them back if they travel further. In other words, uncoordinated, secret “cold transfers” without the consent of the first country are not legal in any sense.
Furthermore, a German court even ruled recently that unilateral expulsion by the police was illegal in relation to another case involving three Somali nationals who were taken back to Poland despite declaring their intention to seek asylum in Germany.
The Venmo incident also seems to be related to Germany’s increased border checks, which, by the way, are much less efficient than Chancellor Merz promised.
On the other side, the Dutch government does even less, which prompted everyday citizens recently to voluntarily set up border checks against illegal immigrants themselves.
Migration is once again the biggest political topic in the Netherlands and is dominating the campaign ahead of the coming snap elections at the end of October. The election was triggered by the shocking collapse of the government after Geert Wilders took his right-wing populist PVV party out of the coalition over his “center-right” partner’s unwillingness to sign off on his asylum reform proposals.
As PVV confidently maintains its place at the top of the polls, Wilder has set his eyes on the premiership, which may very well be the only thing that can finally deliver the reforms that the Dutch voted for two years ago.