Draconian Dutch Immigration Laws Could Help Spread of Ebola

Last October, an undercover cop was stabbed in the neck in broad daylight by a mentally-deranged individual in the small island of Ijburg, just outside of Amsterdam. The suspect ran back to HVO-Querido, the homeless shelter for individuals with mental problems where he was staying, but was quickly apprehended by police, with one sustaining slight injuries. Soon after being arrested, the suspect was dragged -- bloody bag over his head to hide his identity -- to a police car and sped away from the artificially-created island.

Leather gloves won't stop Ebola. RTV
The small community was shocked, and surely the police department felt that they needed to reassure the residents that all was safe, and that no further undercover cops would be stabbed by the homeless. In furtherance of that goal, the police set up checkpoints outside of the supermarket, targeting any minority on a bicycle who did not have proper lights. 

One minority interviewed by Abreu Report had this to say: "I wasn't aware that a cop had been stabbed, and either way it's an aberration, it wouldn't have changed my habits. What changed my habits was how humiliated I was by the police."

According to the individual who was stopped by the Ijburg police for failure to have proper lights on his bicycle -- while on a bike lane -- he was merely visiting the Netherlands: "I'm a US citizen -- which means that I don't need an mvv -- and, further, my parent is a Dutch citizen and I have a residence permit to live in the EU, but that wasn't enough for the police." All immigrants from outside of the Netherlands are required to take an integration course -- mvv -- before they can enter the Netherlands, with the exception of: EU nationals, Japanese citizens, and American citizens. 

The local police, perhaps unaware that US citizens are exempt from the mvv, simply asked the individual where he was born and if he was registered at an address in the Netherlands. Any individual who does not have an mvv and is not registered at an address after three days is by law to be reported to the foreign police for immediate deportation. Though US citizens can visit the Netherlands for three months, they must register within three days  with the foreign police. If, for example, a US citizen were to spend 31 days in the apartment of one part-time lover and 31 days in the apartment of another, the government reserves the right to know exactly who those two people are, within 3 business days after the swap. 

"I came by car to visit my girlfriend to spend a few weeks here, I wasn't even planning to spend a month," the distraught individual informed Abreu Report. "At first the police told me I would get a fine for not having lights on my bicycle after 7pm, but after I told them my girlfriend's address, they asked me if she was registered there, and I told them she was. The police officer informed me that the information checked out, and that I would get a warning this time. He then told me to walk home, and I walked home in the rain. A week later, the foreign police showed up at my girlfriend's house with a warrant to search the premises for foreign nationals."

After asking the US national if he was harboring any diseases, the foreign police informed him that they were concerned because if there were a fire, they would be unable to identify his remains, and that the problem is that immigrants tend to live too many to a house. The US citizen was taken to the foreign police station, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a glass cell for a couple of hours. Thereafter, he was given a letter and instructed to return to Spain -- his country of primary residence -- for three months. "If we find you, you'll be illegal," the son of a Dutch citizen was informed by a stone-faced police commissioner. "I had a cut in my hand, so there's literally blood on the paper they used to fingerprint me, and they surely used the same leather gloves that they'd used on previous detainees," he added after mentioning how in the USSR many confession papers would have blood on them.

Despite the fact that the US national has legal status in Spain and is the son of a Dutch citizen, the only reason he was allowed to go and not immediately deported to Spain was because the US passport gives us an exemption from the mvv. While most liberal American cities prevent their local police from enforcing immigration laws, the Netherlands forces quotas upon its officers. The result is a tense feeling of mistrust and paranoia that will prevent any Ebola-infected immigrant from being honest about where he was staying and with which persons he came into contact.

"I learned my lesson after that experience, I had never been incarcerated in my life, and for me to get taken out of my house and put in a police van, for all my neighbors to see, it only re-inforced my belief that I'm a second-class person here in the Netherlands," he added.

Abreu Report has interviewed several people for this article, and one Brazilian with legal status in France was almost denied medical care because he could not provide an address. It was only after he began spilling blood on the desk of the hospital staff, that they finally decided to treat him. Under no circumstances would a wise individual staying here without a Dutch residence permit inform the police where he lives. At every step of the way, a person must insist that he is merely passing through the country -- as is his/her right as a resident of the EU.

In an effort to crack down on Moroccans, the Dutch government has established a system that breeds dysfunction, that forces the local police to go after people who are not otherwise committing crimes [immigration laws are defined to be "administrative offences."]

When/if Ebola strikes in the Netherlands, expect that immigrants will be too afraid to inform the authorities where they live. Expect immigrants to run away from their homes once someone comes down with Ebola, lest the foreign police come and apprehend everyone living in the house. In an effort to keep us safe from Geert Wilders' imagined Moroccan "hordes," the society has opened the door to a worse, real horde: Ebola-infected individuals who have no trust for the system.