There are 9,866,539 buildings
in the Netherlands, give or take a few.
Some new, some old,
some squished, and some, well, blue.
But of those 9 million,
there's a one-story in Amsterdam with a gray door and a secret.
In it sits a man who is not supposed to be there but he wants to tell you something.
Right, so where are you from specifically?
Meet Abdi, well, kind of.
He doesn't wanna be on camera.
That's because if he's recognized by police, he could be detained or jailed.
You see, Abdi is living in the Netherlands illegally.
Thousands of asylum seekers in Amsterdam live in unused buildings or
squats.
Why?
Well 90,000 people seeking refugee permits
came to the Netherlands in the past 2 years.
But many aren't granted those permits to stay, and are asked to leave.
Yet, and here's the key,
the Dutch government often won't deport asylum seekers back to war-torn countries.
So for some, it's illegal to stay, risky to be seen in public, and
very difficult to go back home.
So where do you go?
Therein lies the story of the asylum squatters.
Tell me about this bedroom, is this all of your stuff?
Jabir lives just a soccer ball kick down the hallway from Abdi.
He's been on the move since childhood.
First in Somalia then Yemen, Syria, Greece, and now here.
He says when he arrived the Dutch government didn't believe he was from
Somalia and he was denied a refugee permit.
Jabir is the one who found this empty building where he and
his friends have moved.
They've been here a month, but an eviction is coming.
Potential houses are either scouted in person, found using housing websites, or
recommended by Dutch squatters.
>> The history of squatting in Amsterdam dates back to the late 70s,
when there were a lot of empty buildings and a permanent housing shortage.
Squatting was legal for actually many years.
There was a point in which the courts decided, if you had moved in with a table,
a chair, and a mattress, that this was now your house.
And in 2010 it was finally declared illegal.
>> Squatting is prohibited in the Netherlands, so we don't acknowledge that.
As Amsterdam we have to provide about 2,000 people a year with a permit.
Only the refugees who doesn't have a permit, we are not
allowed to give them shelter, or we are not allowed to give them a house.
We as a city are accepting it, but
at the national scale it is more right-wing, the debate there.
>> Overall Amsterdam considers itself accepting of refugees.
But earlier this year, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
defeated an anti immigration candidate in an election.
But even Rutte said that the refugee crisis puts the EU at risk, and
has called for cultural assimilation.
>> Some asylum seekers have responded to the lack of permits by organizing.
Khalid is from the Darfur region of
Sudan and helps run the group We Are Here.
The group stages marches, protests,
and attempts to start communication with building owners.
But sometimes that just doesn't work, as is the case with Abdi and Jabir.
Some building owners will tolerate the guests, but
others turn to police or courts to evict squatters.
After all, what they're doing is illegal.