What drives 'soft deportation'? Understanding the rise in Assisted Voluntary Return among rejected asylum seekers in the Netherlands

States experience difficulties in realizing the return of rejected asylum seekers, but migration control policies are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Against this background, we consider explanations for the increase in Assisted Voluntary Return from the Netherlands in the 2005-2011 period. Both macro-level factors (source country societal conditions and characteristics of the Dutch "deportation regime") and individual-level factors (applicants' demographic characteristics and variation in status determination time) are examined. The study, which is based on a unique multilevel dataset (N... Mehr ...