24 October 2008

THE NETHERLANDS - The immigration authorities have announced stricter monitoring of marriages involving foreign partners.

At present, the validity of a marriage is checked once, when a foreign partner applies for a residence permit.

In future, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND), will perform an additional check after one year, the moment when the residence permit comes up for renewal. The IND will check whether the couple are still living together.

The IND recently conducted a pilot scheme in the region of The Hague, after which it reported that 25 percent of all suspect marriages there were indeed marriages of convenience.

The additional checks will now be rolled out across the rest of the Netherlands.

[Radio Netherlands / Expatica]