00:00Did the Netherlands vote against making illegal immigrants illegal?
00:08Dutch social media users and activists claim that the country's Senate has rejected a proposed law
00:14that would have made residing in the Netherlands illegally illegal.
00:18The Senate did recently throw out a bill designed by the far-right Populist PVV Party
00:23to take a hard line on illegal immigration, but the narrative suggests a major legal reversal.
00:29The Cube spoke to experts who said that framing the bill in such a way was an oversimplification
00:33and that the devil is in the details.
00:36Living in the Netherlands without a valid permit has long been classified as illegal or irregular
00:40under administrative migration law.
00:43The proposal devised by PVV and rejected by the Senate would have criminalized a legal resident,
00:48moving it into the realm of criminal law.
00:50But voting down the bill doesn't mean that undocumented migrants are suddenly legal either.
00:55They still face consequences such as detention and deportation, but under administrative law,
01:00as they did before, rather than being given a criminal record.
01:04Critics of the proposed law celebrated its rejection because advisory bodies said that
01:08it would have made it a criminal offense to help or support any illegal immigrants.
01:13NGOs and churches rallied against this provision, with some detractors arguing that even volunteers
01:18in soup kitchens could be accused of being complicit in a crime.
01:21Justice Minister David Van Weel attempted to amend the bill to include a humanitarian clause,
01:27which said that acts of charity would not be punishable.
01:30The amendment lost by a vote and ultimately led to the law's downfall.
01:34The PVV party accused the government of trying to water it down.
01:38Centrist and religious parties, meanwhile, refused to support it unless the humanitarian clause was in there.
01:44In the end, the bill didn't fail because the Senate wanted to be soft on illegal immigration,
01:49but because politicians couldn't agree on whether the line between a border policy
01:53and a bowl of soup should be drawn.
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