|Published on: 28th August 2026|Categories: News|
- Almost 70 people have been detained after attending interviews at the Immigration Office since the start of the year.
- NGOs and opposition politicians have condemned the Federal Government’s plan to significantly reduce the number of reception places in Brussels for people seeking asylum.
- A group of Palestinian students are unlikely to be able to take up the scholarships that they have won at various Belgian higher education institutes due to disagreements in the Federal Government about the evacuation of people from Gaza.
Almost 70 people have been detained after attending interviews at the Immigration Office since the start of the year. According to the Soir newspaper, 68 people have been detained in this way so far in 2026 compared to 71 in the whole of the previous year. The newspaper highlights the case of a Palestinian man who was detained following a hearing on 21 May. The Immigration Office justified his detention on the grounds that he had “failed to comply with prior orders to leave the territory”. It also cited a “risk of flight”. His lawyer rejected both arguments. The Court of Cassation reviewed the case and ruled that the Immigration Office’s action had been legitimate and that it was not required to warn applicants about the possibility of arrest or to specify the reason for a summons. The NGO Coordination and Initiatives for Refugees and Foreigners (Ciré) has highlighted the dilemma that this policy creates for asylum applicants: “Failing to respond to a summons is presumed to mean they have abandoned their application. However, responding may lead to detention in a closed centre”.
NGOs and opposition politicians have condemned the Federal Government’s plan to significantly reduce the number of reception places in Brussels for people seeking asylum. On 16 July, Minister of Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt announced that 1,000 of the 2,000 places that had been available under the 2022 ‘Brussels Deal’ would be eliminated. She justified the move on the grounds that waiting lists had shortened. Brussels Minister of Finance Minister Dirk De Smedt told the Morgen newspaper that the decision would lead to “social disaster”. He also accused Van Bossuyt of “playing games with statistics” by “changing the conditions for the waiting list every day and then claiming it is shrinking”. His criticism was echoed by Brussels Minister of Welfare Ahmed Laaouej who described it as a “completely irresponsible and inhumane decision, which will leave hundreds of people, including children, homeless in the middle of a heatwave”. On 18 August, a group of NGOs and trade unions organised a demonstration to protest against the cuts. They demanded that the “current facilities and jobs be maintained” and, at a minimum, that the closures be postponed until the end of March 2027 in order to allow them to “get through the winter and for genuine consultation with the authorities”. They argued that “closing facilities now, only to potentially have to reopen them in the middle of winter, could be more costly than maintaining them”.
A group of Palestinian students are unlikely to be able to take up the scholarships that they have won at various Belgian higher education institutes due to disagreements in the Federal Government about the evacuation of people from Gaza. In June, the 13 students received offers to begin classes in some of Belgium’s top universities. However, on 20 August, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the EUobserver online newspaper that “In the current situation, no adjustment of the visa procedure can in itself remove the main obstacle: the possibility of actually leaving Gaza”. Minister of Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt said: “Evacuations are the competence of the Foreign Office but it is true that there is currently no consensus on this within the government”. Vice-rector of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) Anne Weyembergh told the POLITICO online newspaper that some parties in the government coalition were “extremely reluctant when it comes to migration” and that officials had cited “logistical issues” regarding possible evacuations from Gaza. “They say it’s impossible. But it doesn’t seem to us that it is,” she said. In a letter to Prime Minister Bart De Wever and Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prévot, the students insisted that they were not asking for Belgium’s security or immigration requirements to be waived. Instead, they were looking for a “practical and lawful way to fulfil them in the exceptional circumstances we are facing”.
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