THE HAGUE, WILLEMSTAD - In 2019, the Netherlands made resources available to tackle the migration problem in Aruba and Curaçao. This was created by the growing flow of migrants from Venezuela as a result of the deteriorating economic situation in that country. Curaçao has requested support from the Netherlands for the improvement and expansion of the aliens’ reception and detention center in Curaçao. In recent years, resources have been given to Curaçao for this based on progress reports. The last remaining resources had been retained, pending further steps that Curaçao had to take to improve the detention of aliens. Immigration detention and the immigration chain are both autonomous matters for the country of Curaçao.
Progress
Curaçao has taken various steps to improve immigration detention and human rights standards. State Secretary Van Huffelen for Kingdom Relations still sees room for improvement, but also attaches great importance to the fact that Curaçao can continue with the improvements and safeguarding of humane conditions in immigration detention. In the discussion with Curaçao about immigration detention, the State Secretary - in light of the motion by the Dutch MP Simons - continues to draw attention to the discussion of bottlenecks in immigration detention and the overall cooperation between Curaçao and NGOs.