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69

Shortly before Milaad’s birthday, the ASC woke up to news that no one dared believe at first. Rumor had it that the government had issued a general pardon for all asylum seekers. All asylum seekers. Exactly what this meant, no one knew, and no one believed it would actually apply to them. Talib started spreading a joke that there was a General named Pardon, who had gone through all the IND dossiers and decided to give everyone a residence permit, no matter what was in their file. A kind of military coup. For many ignorant people, this was a way to make sense of it. Social Services, the VVN, and even Reception began explaining what the general pardon meant: that asylum seekers whose procedure predated April 1, 2001, and who had still not received a definitive answer and could not be repatriated, would be given a residence permit. On the condition that the person did not have a criminal record and had been in the Netherlands continuously from that date onwards. The reason for this general pardon was that a new Aliens Act went into effect on April 1, 2001, and the Dutch government wanted to start with a clean slate.

People started lining up to ask if the new law applied to them. For some of them it was a drama. João, an asylum seeker from Angola, had had his first interview on April 2, 2001.

“Look,” he said to Wim from the VVN. “I arrived on March 28, so before April 1, but they only took my first interview on the 2nd. Please, call the IND and say I should also have the general pardon.” But Wim, who had years of experience, told João the IND knew exactly where to look, and he would hear from them in due time. “Listen, that’s no good,” João said. “I’ve been waiting here for years, and because they registered me just one day after April 1, I won’t get the general pardon. That’s absurd!”

“Call your lawyer. He should be able to do something.”

“I’ve been trying all day to call him, but his secretary said exactly what you just did. I wanted to speak to him personally, but he didn’t have time, or was in court.”

The line was long, and Wim told him to come back the next day. João wandered through the ASC with all his papers, relating his situation in English, Dutch, or Portuguese to everyone he encountered. I heard that Wim did call the IND for him, and that João had actually arrived in the Netherlands on April 2, but he kept making his rounds with the bag full of papers because even if he didn’t arrive on March 28, the whole thing was totally unfair.

Claudinho, another Angolan, went to Wim to say that João was getting close to the edge, and suggested Wim tell him the IND wouldn’t make a fuss about just one day, but Wim did not want to give him false hope. Claudinho went to Social Services with the same request, and got the same answer.

The IND did not give João a residence permit. There were many other asylum seekers who suffered the same fate, because they had arrived weeks or months after April 1, but that was no comfort to João, for whom getting a residence permit or not had been a matter of hours.

Talib was one of the first to receive the coveted letter. The receptionist handed him the envelope, and even before he opened it, he reached into his pocket and took out a bunched-up wad of orange plastic. He blew it up and put the enormous orange inflatable crown on his head. Without him even saying a word, the entire ASC knew he had been given a residence permit and had been saving the inflatable crown for this moment.