Activation versus Forced Inactivity. Government, Civil Society and the Promotion of Self-Sufficiency of Asylum Seekers and Irregular Immigrants

Abstract

Different actors involved in the integration of immigrants into the host society have different ideas on who is allowed to integrate and when the integration process should start. This contribution asks how different actors in the Netherlands approach the issue of immigrant integration, which is to be understood here as the promotion of self-sufficiency of immigrants in the host society. More specifically, the article analyses to what extent the different actors aim at activating immigrants. We look at actors operating at three different levels: 1) central government, 2) the municipalities and 3) civil society, and two different groups of immigrants: 1) asylum seekers (either waiting for their procedure to start as well as those who are ‘in procedure’) and 2) irregular immigrants (focusing on rejected asylum seekers). We focus in particular on possibilities for employment, volunteer work and learning the Dutch language. By comparing the approaches taken by the different actors, we hope to provide insight into the question of how these actors interact when it comes to the integration of (rejected) asylum seekers, and to draw lessons from these insights.

Keywords: integration policy, asylum seekers, irregular immigrants, civil society