Removal and persona non grata in Curaçao: what 16 rulings teach

September 6, 2026 · Updated on November 2, 2026 RisksRights

Legal review: pending This page summarises court rulings and has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer. It is not legal advice. What this means

Two mechanisms people confuse

Curaçao's admission law (LTU) has two distinct measures. Expulsion (uitzetting, Art. 15) is ordered by the Attorney General against someone deemed undesirable on public-order or morality grounds, usually with an entry ban. Removal (verwijdering, Art. 19) is ordered by the Minister of Justice against someone who entered irregularly or stayed after their permit expired. Different authorities, different procedures, and each is challenged separately, stating precisely which decision you are challenging: a man with a removal order appealed the next day against "the refusal of his permit", which the Minister had not yet issued, and the appeal was inadmissible as premature; the removal order went unexamined (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2012:BW7354).

What does not stop a removal

• Having applications pending. A tourist who overstayed, with residence applications in progress, received a removal order in 2011 with a 3-year ban on returning (in 2024, in a Sint Maarten case, the Joint Court stopped accepting such a ban: see below); the applications were first admissions and had to be awaited abroad anyway (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2012:BY7697). This is the most expensive and most repeated mistake.
• Entering after being refused entry. In 2020 the Curaçao court upheld the removal and the detention, with no lighter measure, of someone who entered that way, and also a 3-year ban on returning (ECLI:NL:OGEAC:2020:222); the Joint Court stopped accepting such bans in 2024, in a Sint Maarten case (see below).
• A verbal promise by an official. It creates no legitimate expectation if the person had no authority (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2022:47 · Aruba).
• An envelope without a postmark as proof you sent your objection. The burden of proving dispatch is yours (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2021:375 · Aruba).

What does stop it: family, if the government failed to weigh it

Where there is a Dutch spouse and children or years of prior legal residence, the Ministry must balance interests under Art. 8 ECHR (family life) before removing. A Colombian who had lived in Curaçao since 2001, with a residence permit for 9 of those years (more than half of his stay, according to the court), married to a Dutch woman and with two Dutch children, had the decision annulled for lack of reasoning (ECLI:NL:OGEAC:2021:4). The Ministry decided again without weighing the interests; the government appealed, lost, and the Joint Court revoked the removal order (verwijderingsbeschikking) (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2022:52).

The limit: 30 years in Sint Maarten without ever having legal status, with a Dutch wife and children, was not enough to stop removal (Art. 8 protects only in very exceptional circumstances). But the court did annul the "persona non grata" declaration and the 3-year ban, for lack of legal basis (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2024:237 · Sint Maarten). In doing so it changed its position and expressly departed from one of its own Curaçao rulings, BY7697: the provision of the Toelatingsbesluit that had been used, which says the same in Curaçao, only covers tourists and does not allow a person being removed to be declared undesirable or banned from returning; in the law, a ban on returning goes with expulsion under Art. 15, decided by the Attorney General. Among the rulings we analyzed there is not yet one from Curaçao applying this new position: if a removal order comes with a ban on returning, you can object to that part, with a lawyer. Winning on the balancing does not grant a permit: it forces the government to decide again, better reasoned.

Procedural details that decided cases

• A letter from an NGO (HRDC) expressing disagreement counted as a formal objection the Ministry never processed; the delay was excused because the notice was not in a language the person understood (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2022:62).
• Already deported, a man kept the right to have his objection decided: the Ministry's silence equals an appealable refusal (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2021:371 · Aruba).
• In Aruba, if the decision carries two dates, the printed one and the one of the signature, the deadline to appeal starts the day after the signature: a court counted from the printed date, declared a timely appeal late, and the case was reopened (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2023:222). In Curaçao the 6 weeks start the day after the decision is sent or handed over (LAR, Arts. 16 and 56), not the day you receive or read it.
• Even a Dutch national born in Curaçao was declared persona non grata in Bonaire for a drug offence and for working there without authorization (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2022:199).

The voluntary departure that avoids the record

A formal removal order (verwijderingsbeschikking) stays on your file and can weigh on a new application years later: in ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2012:BX0418, the Minister withdrew in 2011, because of a removal order from 2003, the permit a man had obtained through a special programme for undocumented people, and the court upheld the decision. The Rib'e Lugá policy includes a little-known guarantee: the Minister of Justice will not issue that formal order to anyone who leaves voluntarily before January 1, 2027. It speaks of undocumented people in general, although it does not say expressly that it covers those who never registered. Leaving on time and reapplying properly from your country is, in the cases analyzed, the only route that leaves no scar. After an order, the general deadline to leave on your own is at most 6 weeks; if you need more, ask in writing, with concrete reasons, whoever issued the order (the 2006 policy sent such requests to the Gezaghebber, which no longer exists).

After the removal: the no-admission period

A removal order usually also imposes a no-admission period during which you cannot come back. It is not final: you can ask for it to be lifted or shortened. In one Aruba case the period was 96 months and the Ministry itself cut it to 66 when deciding the objection (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2023:145). Three 2023 rulings, all from Aruba, dealt with who you ask: there the court confirmed that since March 1, 2022 it is decided by the Ministry of Labour, Integration and Energy, not by Justice, and found for the foreign national who had asked that ministry (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2023:216); but if the request and the objection were addressed to Justice, that ministry has to decide them, and arguing afterwards that it lacked competence failed (ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2023:217). They are from Aruba: in Curaçao, first confirm which ministry the request goes to, because sending it to the wrong one costs months.

If you already have an order

1. Identify exactly which document you received (uitzetting, verwijdering, ongewenstverklaring) and the date it was sent or handed to you.
2. File an objection within 6 weeks, by email, to all official addresses, and keep the acknowledgement. Step by step in Objection and appeal.
3. If you have family legally settled in Curaçao, document real dependence (same address at Kranshi, children, shared income): that is what the court looks at.
4. If you fear for your life in your country, request international protection in writing immediately: it suspends execution.
5. Get a lawyer: the litigation success rate for the removal itself is 25% (4 of 16 cases), and the cases won were won on precise technical arguments.

Source: 19 rulings classified as expulsion/deportation among the 172 analyzed (16 on the removal itself and 3, from Aruba, on the no-admission period) (courts of Curaçao and the Joint Court; some from Aruba, Bonaire and Sint Maarten, flagged). Full list in Jurisprudencia (Spanish). Not legal advice.

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