Undocumented – a letter to de groene amsterdammer

Thanks for the extended article about the parallel world of undocumented fellow towns-men. Chris Keulemans sketches in the article a pretty complete image of the world in which people without documents try to live, both the daily reality as well as the paper reality of policy documents, juridical rulings and political discussions concerning respecting the most banal human rights: food, clothes and shelter.

Ironically enough We Are Here is treated in the article as one of many institutions providing undocumented persons shelter. We Are Here is a protest group that for almost five years already brings up the holes in the present systems (both the national asylum system as well as local shelter-structures). The buildings where many people of We Are Here sleep are squatted, again and again eviction is notified. It is only thanks to big efforts that a new building is opened and people do not end up in the street, after which the whole story starts over. The mayor can say in his city no one sleeps in the streets, but he knows just as well as all other people concerned that this is a lie, and certainly not prevented by efforts of the municipality. It is too easy to exclude people who bring up this matter as activists.

Every day I meet people who fall out of all systems, who are no (longer) allowed access to nightshelter, who are refused 24-hour shelter, who do not get medical help other than provided by the devoted doctors of Doctors of the World in the Zorgbus, who are no (longer) helped by Vluchtelingenwerk or ASKV. Time and time again I am astonished by the labyrinth where people have to find there way, where there seems no exit possible and you are send from pillar to post. I walk with them, from pillar to post – and back, searching for an entrance to come to a solution.

Luckily there is good news as well. People get still their residence permit, many people are in procedure again and awaiting an answer from IND. Their stories show one by one how the asylum systems fails, is inaccurate, or follows a logic that in no way can be called logical.

Sinead Wendt, Amsterdam

http://wijzijnhier.org/uncategorized/reactie-op-artikel-ongedocumenteerden-uit-de-groene-amsterdammer/