Poortwachters

Every day, the application centre of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), AC Ter Apel, receives numerous requests for asylum. Some applicants are allowed to stay in the Netherlands until it is safe again to return to their native country, most of them are turned down. Who takes refuge for real safety reasons and who does so due to the bad economical situation in their home country? This is assessed in Ter Apel, nowadays by means of the 48-hour procedure. This means: direct admittance or direct expulsion. For the first time in history, the IND allowed a filmmaker to register the application procedures. Roelofs follows the often harsh conversations and the IND staff who struggle daily with their assignment involving moral and ethical issues. Fraud is extensive and they find more and more that refugees from real war zones lack the money to pay people traffickers. Therefore, Roelofs also follows a Dutch delegation to the Iraqi-Syrian border, where refugees are screened on the spot and consequently can still obtain political asylum in the Netherlands.