It’s not the first time that I’ve touched on the Dutch immigration mess where the political pressure to take a firm stand has resulted in some warped results. The most notable one is transporting gays and Christians back to that liberal paradise of human rights, Iran. Well, not more according to the latest to which I was alerted by a loyal American reader:

Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk has bowed to pressure from parliament and agreed not to deport Iranian gay people and Christian converts for the time being.

The Minister told MPs on Wednesday afternoon she would extend a previous moratorium on the expulsions. She took the decision when it became clear a majority of MPs doubt whether the rejected asylum seekers would be safe in Iran.

The moratorium will remain in force until a new foreign ministry assessment of the situation in Iran for gays and Muslims who have converted to Christianity has been completed. This will likely take until August or September.

The pre-existing notion that gays or Christians could somehow be safe in a nation like Iran is simply too absurd to seriously entertain and Verdonk was rightly called on that by parliament.

The basic rationale for asylum seekers and refugees is to provide a haven of safety up to the point when it can be convincingly argued that they can return back home, a simple premise that is incredibly hard to implement for the Dutch immigration services. My mother-in-law used to be quite active as a volunteer working with refugees, most of whom had conveniently lost their identification papers in order to facilitate an extended stay in the lowlands. Through her I became acquainted with an endearing Afghan family who had rightly abandoned a nation ravaged by the Taliban. The father, who used to be part of the police in Kabul, didn’t fit into the new order although he was never able to convincingly make his case to Dutch authorities. Yet, he and his family were granted a permanent stay - something I do not begrudge them – but it ignored the fact that given the changed circumstances in Afghanistan there was good reason to apply the refugee-principle and let the man and his family return home to help rebuild their fatherland. All the more so as around the same time a Syrian Christian family was given its definitive marching orders after a considerably longer Dutch stay, and, a far more comprehensive case file that would have warranted a prolonged safe harbor.

Again, it appears to be hard to get this right and it would serve Verdonk – especially in light of her political ambitions – well to improve the process and make it less 'assumptions-based'.