Dutch and German police were out in force at the border near Ter Apel on Sunday night as a group of vigilantes gathered for a second night, saying they planned to carry out their own controls on cars crossing into the Netherlands.
The group, some 50 strong, carrying torches and wearing high visibility jackets, arrived in some 10 vehicles and all had their IDs checked by the police, local broadcaster RTV Noord said. But unlike on Saturday night, they did not flag down any vehicles.
On Saturday the group, waving torches, stopped cars on the N366 and in some cases looked into their boots, the AD said.
There were no arrests and the protest passed off without problems, local media said.
The demonstration was called by Jan Huzen, described by the AD as a seasoned activist with convictions for libel and incitement. He claims to have been angered by a film showing German police returning an asylum seeker they had stopped at the border to the Netherlands.
“The Dutch government won’t do anything, so I think it sensible for people to go to border and stop German police dumping all these asylum seekers over the border,” he wrote on Facebook on Saturday, the AD reported.
Westerwolde mayor Jaap Velema told the AD on Sunday he “understood the frustrations” about the failure to solve the refugee problem in Ter Apel, the main reception centre for new arrivals in the Netherlands. “But this is not the way to express your frustrations,” he said.
Official checks
Last week, government auditors said extra checks at the Dutch borders are not helping to reduce the number of asylum applications.
The government introduced the additional checks to tackle irregular migration and cross-border crime such as people smuggling and document fraud last year. The checks were also intended to ease pressure on the asylum system, which is struggling with limited reception capacity and housing shortages.
The new controls led to more people being stopped than during earlier operations, and more people were refused entry. However, there were fewer arrests for people smuggling and document fraud.
The number of asylum seekers arriving at the border also declined, but the audit office said that this number has never been high. Of the 44,000 asylum applications made in 2024, only 400 — less than 1% — were made at the border.