Belgian authorities announced on June 19 that they will expand police checks on their territory this summer as part of the fight against irregular immigration.

These checks will not be at the borders, but inside the country. They will take place on major roads and at busy motorway service stations. They will also be carried out on international bus lines, particularly the La Panne-Dunkirk line, as well as on certain trains, especially at the Bruxelles-Midi station. Checks will also cover arrivals on domestic flights to countries within the Schengen Area considered to be subject to high migratory pressure, such as Italy and Greece.

Police officers will check people's residence permits and identity cards. The aim of these operations is to identify undocumented individuals or those who have already applied for asylum in another European country, and to deport them from Belgium. Authorities say this will strengthen the fight against organized crime (drug trafficking and human trafficking).

"We are fulfilling our responsibilities by carrying out strict and targeted checks at strategic intersections. In this way, we are combating illegal migration flows and preventing the shift of migratory pressure towards Belgium, while also combating crime more effectively in order to strengthen security on our territory,” Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said.

These actions will be carried out through close collaboration between the federal police, the local police, and the Immigration Office, a department of the ministry that decides on asylum applications. This collaboration between these different structures has been strongly criticized by human rights NGOs, who say it criminalizes foreigners, including those seeking international protection.

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Tougher migration policy

A few weeks earlier, Minister of Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt reaffirmed her commitment to implementing "the strictest migration policy Belgium has ever seen," La Libre Belgique reported.

"The pressure on society is too great. The influx must decrease," she argued, highlighting the constantly increasing migration flows in recent years. Some 39,000 asylum applications were filed in 2024, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous year, which, like 2022, had seen a significant decrease.

The minister stated that Belgium now intends to toughen its stance on irregular immigration and asylum applications filed successively in several European countries, a practice she describes as "asylum shopping."

Since taking office last February, Bart de Wever's Flemish nationalist government has stepped up its crackdown on irregular immigration. The government has limited family reunification, restricted access to Belgian citizenship, deported people whose protection applications have been rejected, closed migrant reception facilities, including centers for unaccompanied foreign minors (UMs), excluded single men from reception centers, and reduced refugees' access to social assistance in recent months.

At the same time, the government plans a drastic cut in the budget allocated to asylum policy.

Anti-migrant policies are also being rolled out in neighboring countries, as nationalist and far-right parties rise. Germany re-established border controls in the summer of 2024, followed by the Netherlands in November 2024. That same month, France introduced temporary controls and extended them until October 31, 2025, at the border with six of its neighboring countries (Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany).

"People moving from one country to another is a reality. Claiming that we can put a stop to this through border controls, especially between European countries where free movement is possible, is completely absurd," Green Party MP Matti Vandemaele said in La Libre Belgique. "Belgian borders are 1,445 kilometers long. What does the minister want to do? Install a guard post every ten meters?" he asked.

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Crisis in reception and accommodation of asylum seekers

Since 2021, the reception crisis in Belgium has continued to worsen. Reception centers are overcrowded due to a lack of space, and long waiting times for asylum applications to be processed (over a year on average) are further exacerbating the situation.

By the end of 2024, approximately 3,000 asylum seekers -- mostly single men -- were waiting for accommodation within Belgium’s national reception network (Fedasil). The average waiting time for a place in one of the centers was around six months. In the meantime, many lived without shelter, often staying on the streets or in vacant buildings, in poor conditions.

The Council of Europe has criticized Belgium several times for its failure to accept asylum seekers. Belgian authorities have been ordered to expand the capacity of the national reception network, which currently falls short of the standards set by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Despite these rulings, the Belgian government has continued to reduce the number of places available in migrant reception centers. The Minister for Asylum and Migration has defended the cuts, citing a decrease in new arrivals and a rise in deportations as justification.