The immigration service IND has ruled that a 12-year-old boy and his mother can be deported to Armenia, even though the child was born in the Netherlands and has never been there, Trouw reported on Thursday, citing his lawyers Dora Brouwer and Flip Schüller.

Mikael became the focus of a major campaign last year to prevent his deportation after the IND initially said he and his mother must leave the Netherlands. A petition calling on asylum minister Marjolein Faber to allow the boy to stay has now been signed over 50,000 times.

Schüller filed a new appeal to the IND last year, after the Council of State, the Netherlands’ highest administrative court, ruled that Mikael could be deported. He had initially won his case in 2021, but the justice ministry chose to appeal the decision.

Schüller declined to comment further while the legal team considers its next steps.

The Council of State ruled that Mikael did not meet the conditions for residency on the basis of being “well-rooted” in the Netherlands, because he and his mother had not been in contact with the authorities for three months.

The latest appeal focused on Mikael’s father, who lives in the Netherlands and has residency rights because he has children with a Dutch woman.

However, the IND rejected the argument, stating that Mikael could not claim his father had a legal duty of care given his mother has been his primary caregiver.

“The IND might as well send me to Ghana,” Mikael told the Parool in June. “I know as much about that country as I do about Armenia.”