Yesterday 15 December 2025, the public gallery of the Dutch House of Representatives was packed. Civil society organisations were present, churches, concerned citizens – but most importantly, undocumented people themselves. People who live here, work here, raise children here, and contribute every day to the Dutch economy. Yet once again, they were reduced in this debate to a “problem”, a “risk”, or an object meant to scare others away.
Minister Van Weel (VVD) clung to a comforting narrative. The criminalisation of undocumented residence, he insisted, is not aimed at the tens of thousands of undocumented people living in the Netherlands. It would apply only to a small group: some 300 to 400 rejected asylum seekers per year who allegedly cause “nuisance” and refuse to cooperate with return.
This claim collapses under even minimal scrutiny. It contradicts both the text of the law and the openly stated intentions of its architects. PVV MP Vondeling made it clear when introducing the amendment that she envisioned a broad criminalisation – not only of undocumented people as a group, but also, in her own words, of “left-wing activists” who support them. The measure was explicitly designed as a weapon against solidarity itself. During the debate, JA21, BBB and Forum for Democracy confirmed this wider ambition without hesitation, speaking of all undocumented people in the country – estimated between 23,000 and 58,000. The minister’s narrow interpretation is therefore not an explanation of the law, but a political damage-control exercise.
Equally telling was what the debate focused on – and what it ignored. Much time was spent discussing charities and legal exemptions for volunteers, while barely a word was said about the people most affected. About undocumented workers in agriculture, cleaning, hospitality and domestic care. People who work, who pay rent, who contribute through VAT on everything they buy, and who keep entire sectors afloat amid chronic labour shortages. Their presence is not marginal or accidental – it is structurally embedded in the Dutch economy.
That is why the repeated claim that “there is nothing to worry about” rings hollow. Supporters of this law have openly framed it as a deterrent. Fear is not an unintended side effect – it is the mechanism. This was painfully clear when JA21 proposed a “public information campaign” aimed at undocumented people and those who support them. You cannot seriously claim reassurance while deliberately engineering insecurity and vulnerability.
MPs Don Ceder (ChristenUnie) and Lisa Westerveld (GL-PvdA) rightly pressed the minister on the legal and moral implications. Under this law, people who provide help are first labelled potential criminals and only later exempted. But the deeper question remains unanswered: why criminalise people who already live and work here? What does this law add, when existing legal tools already exist to address genuine public order issues?
The minister’s response was painfully thin. After much prodding, he produced a few hypothetical scenarios in which the threat of prison might coerce someone into “voluntary” return. That is not policy – it is pressure. And it differs little from the system of immigration detention that has existed for years, complete with its well-documented legal and human costs.
The most dangerous flaw of this proposal is structural. Even if one were to accept Van Weel’s narrow reading today, it offers no protection tomorrow. Laws remain; ministers change. A successor could effortlessly apply the law more broadly – exactly as its authors and supporters already intend.
What is happening here is not the solution to a practical problem. It is an ideological signal. It criminalises not harm, but existence. Not illegal behaviour, but presence. In a country that quietly depends on the labour of undocumented people, this is not only hypocritical – it is dangerous. Declaring people who contribute to society criminals undermines not just their rights, but the foundations of the rule of law itself.
Coming Thursday, 18 December 2025, the law will be voted for in the Dutch House of Representatives.