Consequences of citizenship revocation for the resocialization of terrorist offenders: A case study of the Netherlands

• In Event: EXTR3 Threat landscape and counter-terrorism2

Abstract

Since the introduction of new legislation in the Netherlands in 2010 and 2017, the government aims to revoke the Dutch citizenship of all dual nationals who were convicted for a terrorist offence or have joined a terrorist organization abroad. However, most of the terrorist offenders who lose their Dutch citizenship cannot be removed to the country of their residual nationality, because they are not accepted or not safe there. After completion of their prison sentence, these offenders become ‘undesirable but unremovable’ former citizens, who continue to reside in the Netherlands unlawfully.

The revocation of Dutch citizenship not only means these former citizens lose any entitlement to social benefits, but it also means they are excluded from any resocialization or deradicalization effort that governmental and other actors are undertaking. The logic behind this is that staying in the Netherlands is made as unattractive as possible and that all efforts are concentrated on the departure of the individual. The reality is, however, that unremovable terrorist offenders remain unlawfully in the Netherlands for years. Municipalities, which are responsible for the resocialization process as well as deradicalization efforts, as well as the probation service, which implements resocialization measures imposed by courts as part of the criminal justice process, are thus not able to perform their tasks. This leads to great concern among those and other governmental actors, who fear these terrorist offenders are lost out of sight and pushed back to their old networks, rendering citizenship revocation counterproductive to their counter-terrorism efforts.

In this presentation, I will share some preliminary empirical findings from a bigger study on this problem, based on interviews with Dutch municipalities, the probation service, law enforcement and public prosecution actors, immigration authorities, social and health care organizations, and other organizations working with terrorist offenders who completed their sentence.

Author

• Maarten Bolhuis, VU Amsterdam