The Dutch government warned local volunteers who want to drive to Greece to fetch 150 asylum seekers over Christmas that their plan amounted to illegal human trafficking.
The "Let's Bring Them Here" foundation is set to leave the central Dutch city of Utrecht for Athens on Friday in a convoy of around 50 cars and a specially refurbished bus.
The foundation said the purpose of the 2,500-kilometre road trip was to "evacuate refugees" living in dire conditions in camps in Greece.
"A humanitarian disaster is ongoing," the foundation said in a statement on its website, which also has a petition with some 44,701 signatures urging the Netherlands to take 1,000 refugees from Greece.
"Because we can not wait for the authorities to respond to the signatures and something has to be done now, we are going to drive to Greece with about 50 cars on 21st December," the foundation said.
Let's Bring Them Here has "announced to the Greek government that they are coming with the intent to bring 150 refugees home" to the Netherlands.
The convoy will also have an elongated bus painted in the foundation's colours.
But the Dutch authorities poured cold water on the plan.
"Even though I share the concerns about the conditions in camps on the Greek islands, fetching people illegally and bringing them to the Netherlands without assurances is a bad idea," Deputy Justice Minister Mark Harbers said.
"The illegal transportation of people without residency rights comes down to human trafficking and is punishable by law," Harbers said in a statement sent to AFP.
The group "clearly want to take their own initiative because they disagree with the government's policy" on migrants, he added.
He said the Netherlands previously took "extraordinary steps" to properly house migrants according to agreements made on European Union level.
The Netherlands so far this year took in 159 asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy as opposed to 1,400 last year, the daily Algemeen Dagblad reported.
Attitudes towards migrants are also hardening, with the far-right party of anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders now second-largest in the Dutch parliament.
Last month Greek officials and the UN's refugee agency expressed concern at the rising numbers of vulnerable people entering via the land border with Turkey.
In the first 10 months of the year, 11,003 people entered Greece via this route, 40 percent more than during the same period in 2017, officials said.
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