Samenvatting

The 2007 Dutch Pardon Regulation, a regularisation programme to settle the legacy of the old immigration law, was meant to deal with backlogs in the settling of asylum procedures. According to the literature there are several risks attached to such regularisation programmes. The parties involved in the implementation of the Dutch Pardon Regulation managed to evade most of these risks, partly because of their great efforts and close cooperation. The results of the Regulation were according to plan with respect to the number of asylum seekers who received a permit in the context of the regulation and their housing. In two respects the Regulation did not have the desired result: temporary shelter in municipalities decreased but was not ended, and it proved difficult to carry through the return of people who were ineligible for the regularisation programme.