Sweden offering $34K to migrants to leave the country
The Nordic nation of Sweden is planning to offer a whopping $34,000 to migrants if they depart the country and return to their places of origin.
“We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our migration policy,” Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell. He announced that Stockholm would increase its offer to migrants by almost 35 times to persuade them to return to their countries of origin. Agence France-Presse reported that the scheme will take effect in 2026.
According to the National Pulse, the move comes as the European continent experiences the repercussions of the migrant crisis in the form of “increasing crime and economic pressures.”
The current scheme offers $976 per adult and $488 per child, with a cap of $3,903 per family. But the migration minister pointed out that the program saw minimal uptake last year, with only one migrant taking advantage of it.
According to lawmaker Ludvig Aspling, spokesman of the Sweden Democrats, the proposed increase to $34,000 seeks to make the program more attractive. In particular, it aims to attract migrants who are unemployed or on welfare – with that category numbering several hundred thousand of people. “That’s the group we think would be interested,” said Aspling.
Over the past two years, Stockholm has tightened its asylum and immigration policies. This appears to have paid off, as the Swedish Migration Agency has noted that the country is on track to receive its lowest number of asylum applications since 1997.
“Sweden’s migration policy is undergoing a paradigm shift,” states the Swedish government’s website, a sentiment echoed by Forssell. “The government is intensifying its efforts to reduce, in full compliance with Sweden’s international commitments, the number of migrants coming irregularly to Sweden.”
“Labor immigration fraud and abuses need to be stopped and the ‘shadow society’ combated. Sweden will continue to have dignified reception standards, and those who have no grounds for protection or other legal right to stay in Sweden should be expelled.”
The migrants Sweden accepted are to blame for its rising violence and fraud
Sweden – whose population is at 10.6 million – has accepted over 250,000 refugees since the middle of 2023. It has become a safe haven for migrants coming from war-torn nations, with most of its refugees coming from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran and Iraq.
But Martin Nyman, a legal advisor with a Stockholm-based human rights organization, saw Sweden’s increased stringency as undesirable. “People should not come to Sweden, that is the signal from this government,” he said.
The stringency with migrant applications appears to be justified, as many of the migrants coming into Sweden are young men of military age. These migrants, in turn, have played a large part in the country’s rising rate of sexual assaults, robberies and fraud. A separate report by the Pulse touched on the latter, most especially in the aspect of benefits fraud.
According to a Sept. 19 piece by the Pulse’s Christopher Tomlinson, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency disclosed in a report that around 80 percent of all welfare benefit fraud money in the country goes to migrants. While the report was initially published internally, the agency later made it available for the general public.
The document also claimed that migrants are vastly over-represented in fraud cases – particularly in cases of “assistance compensation,” child benefits and parental benefits. For the first category, migrants are eight times as likely to receive money they aren’t entitled to.
The report categorizes welfare fraud into two categories – intentional and unintentional. It noted that the number of unintentional welfare fraud cases is much higher. However, the amount of money involved in intentional welfare fraud cases is much higher, averaging around $2,000 per case.
yogaesoteric
September 22, 2024