Who do we help?

All over Western Europe, groups of undocumented migrants live in judicial and political limbo. Among them are persons with expired residence permits, denied asylum requests, or without passports, which makes remigration very difficult. In most cases, they are unable, unwilling or not allowed to remigrate. Due to a number of reasons, such as fear for persuction upon return, or international laws that prohibit deporting people to specific countries, or receiving countries that refuse to accept their return. The lack of legitimate identification papers makes every aspect of the life of undocumented migrants illegal.

In the Netherlands, estimates run between 23.000-58.000 of undocumented migrants that live here. The wide range of the number is a consequence of the fact they live in squatted buildings (as pictured above). Due to their vulnerable legal position, a lot of them fall victim to abuse. Without acces to basic needs, they are dependent upon on the compassion of others. However, compassion (‘barmhartigheid’) is at the core of the DNA of Amsterdam, which is why we help them!