Dutch Vigilantes Set up Illegal Border Checks Near Ter Apel - DutchNews.nl
- On Friday evening, around a dozen Dutch individuals created an informal checkpoint on the N3666 road connecting Ter Apel and Rütenbrock in Germany.
- The group, reportedly organized after a Facebook appeal by a man in Emmen, aimed to protest ease of refugee crossings amid ongoing asylum system struggles.
- The group stopped cars, waved torches, and even inspected some boot compartments while German police ordered them off German soil and Dutch police observed without action.
- Government auditors reported last week that extra official border checks introduced last year have not effectively reduced asylum applications, which totalled 44,000 in 2024.
- The vigilante action highlights public frustration over the asylum system's capacity issues and ongoing debates about border control effectiveness and refugee management.
14 Articles
14 Articles


Fed Up with Migrant Chaos, Dutch Citizens Set Up DIY Border Checks
European voters are increasingly frustrated at establishment parties ignoring their demands for tougher migration controls. In the Netherlands over the weekend, a group of citizens gathered near the border with Germany near Ter Apel to stop cars and conduct asylum seeker checks themselves.They decided to take action after ‘centre-right’ coalition parties blocked asylum reforms, prompting Geert Wilders to take his right-wing populist Freedom Part…
In the heated debate about asylum policy in the Netherlands, citizens organized vehicle controls on their own on the German border. People equipped with warning vests and lamps stopped cars on Sunday evening, as media reported in part with video recordings of the control.On Tuesday, the government in the Netherlands was broken in the dispute over a tougher asylum policy.The actions took place on the Bundesstraße 408, which runs from Haren (Ems) …
The municipality calls the action "life-threatening" and points out that it is prohibited to stop cars in this way.
A group of citizens started a border control on Saturday evening on the N366 between Ter Apel and the German Rütenbrock. The police call the action ‘not the intention’. The activists say they are unhappy that asylum seekers can cross the Dutch border unhindered. “Nothing is happening. So we do it ourselves.”
Citizens in the Netherlands stopped several vehicles at the German-Dutch border near Haren on Saturday. According to a newspaper report, they wanted to stop migrants when they arrived.
The acting Minister of Migration in the Netherlands, David van Weel, called on the population on Sunday evening not to take the law into their own hands.
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