Sweden Clamps Down of Refugee Policy
Money and resources do not grow on magical trees. Sweden can only do so much.
The Social Democrat minority government proposed legislation in Sweden to limit the number of refugees since the asylum seekers have stretched the country thin.
They allowed in 160,000 people last year. From The New York Times:
The government said that under the new rules, individuals who want to bring over family members but do not apply to do so within three months of arriving in Sweden, would have to prove they can financially support them; current regulations require sponsors to demonstrate only that they can support themselves. Permanent residency for asylum-seekers under the age of 25 would be restricted to those who have completed high school and can support themselves.
People who are formally granted refugee status would be able to bring over family members from abroad, but the legislation would circumscribe the family members who are eligible.
The asylum seekers have overwhelmed the public system since only 494 found employment. That’s the tricky thing with socialism. You need people to fund it, but too many people can cause a collapse.
Of course human rights groups have condemned Sweden’s move because how dare they take measures to protect the actual citizens of their country. They tugged at the heart strings, but reality has escaped them. If Sweden keeps accepting the refugees, everything will fall apart and harm those vulnerable children.
But Morgan Johansson, the justice and migration minister, stressed that the country could collapse if Sweden brings in “200,000 of the one million asylum seekers and migrants expected to come to the EU this year.” He also hope it stops them from repeating autumn 2015 when the country received 1,500 every week. The country literally ran out of room for new people.
James Traub at Foreign Policy visited Sweden at the time:
That evening, Mikael Ribbenvik, a senior migration official, said to me, “Today we had to regretfully inform 40 people that we could [not] find space for them in Sweden.” They could stay, but only if they found space on their own.
His article in February highlighted how Sweden’s generosity has torn apart the country. Taub found out that Sweden needed “to spend about 7 percent of its $100 billion next year on refugees.” That means they have to double the 2015 budget:
Where will the additional funds come from? It’s not clear yet, but since the cost of caring for refugees is considered a form of development assistance, Sweden has already cut 30 percent of its very generous foreign aid budget, which largely goes to fortify the very countries from which people are now fleeing, to help make up the difference. Other European donors, including Norway, have done so as well.
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It is very hard to find a middle ground between “we must” and “we can’t.” One of the few people I spoke to who was seeking one was Diana Janse of the Moderates. I asked her if she feared that Sweden was in the process of committing suicide. “It’s an open question,” Janse replied. She worried that the costs of Sweden’s generosity were only beginning to come due, and no one cared to tally them. She had just learned that since the right to 450 days of parental leave per child enshrined in Swedish laws also applies to women who arrive in the country with children under seven, refugees could qualify for several years’ worth of paid leave — even without working, since unemployed women also receive maternal benefits. She was convinced that Sweden needed to end the practice of giving Swedish social payments to refugees, not only because it was unaffordable, but because Sweden had no interest in out-bidding its neighbors to woo refugees.
But the new rules will only apply to those who arrived in Sweden after November 24, 2015. The law will go into effect on July 20 if the government approves it.
In January, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman warned that the country will start deporting refugees as the government rejects applications:
Anders Ygeman told newspaper Dagens Industri that since about 45 percent of asylum applications are currently rejected, the country must get ready to send back tens of thousands of the 163,000 who sought shelter in Sweden in 2015
“I think that it could be about 60,000 people, but it could also be up to 80,000,” Ygeman was quoted as saying.
Ygeman’s spokesman, Victor Harju, confirmed the announcement, adding that the minister was simply applying the current approval rate to the record number of asylum-seekers.“That rate could of course change,” Harju added.
The numbers of refugees has gone down since Sweden now checks photo IDs for all travelers.
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Comments
“That which cannot continue, won’t.”
It’s a law, like the laws of physics and economy. You can’t break the law. No matter how hard you wish it away.
This is just talk.
Nothing will happen.
It is very hard to find a middle ground between “we must” and “we can’t.”
They’re not even looking in the right places for the answers. “We must” is in most specifics an imperative both arbitrary and bogus. Government “must” look out for its citizens. What other real function does government have? There’s no “must” involved for much else.
They’ve trapped themselves between Scylla and Charybdis … but one of those is entirely self-imposed and imaginary. Steer clear of the real one; it’s really not that tricky. But they won’t manage to chart a course; in the end, Europeans can be relied on to shoot their own balls off.
When Oswald Spengler wrote Decline of the West a century ago, he mistitled it; it should have been Decline of Europe. He’s been criticized by subsequent catastrophists for being a bit of a mystic. But phenomenologically, he seems to have been on to something. At some point, countries, cultures, civilizations just … die. And in many ways Europe has been on life support since about 1916. Although Spengler would not have predicted that it would be over-run by Islamic barbarians. In the Spenglerian view, Islam is in even further decline than Europe; the Caliphate had its shot, but that was centuries ago, and it won’t get another. But all becomes clear if we realize that cultures die at different rates—a factor Spengler doesn’t seem to have considered. Islam has been on the decline for almost a millennium, but it’s been doing it slowly. European decline began later, but has followed a steeper slope. So Islam and Europe are in a race to the bottom, and right now Europe is pulling ahead.
Students of Spengler would see both declines as irreversible. Although he didn’t express it in such terms, when that certain “spark” is gone, it won’t come back.
Meanwhile, if anyone has been wanting to visit Europe to see Gothic cathedrals, Renaissance statuary, or Victorian wonders like the Eiffel Tower, do it soon. I predict that the Muslims will be dynamiting that stuff within five years. Ten at the outside.
We shouldn’t allow entry to any more Muslim refugees. We will need the space for the European refugees (of European descent) to come.
While we are at it, we can expel the southern invaders and all Muslims and Islam supporting people.
Just how are they going to round up 80,000 immigrants and then deport them? obama et al have declared that such things are not physically possible.
Cut off the freebies and enforce the laws. The freeloaders will move elsewhere on their own. It’s really very simple.
Das rite. Just that simple.
Going to the wife’s little sister’s house in a little while for a dinner Bday party for her nephew who is turning 14. His father, my brother-in-law who turns 48 tomorrow will take any opportunity that his mother & father are not looking to talk to me about the failed policies of the Social Democrats and the far-left in Sweden. The pressure to remain silent is fierce. Being a not so shy boy from NYC I do not have the hang ups the native Swedes have about calling a spade a spade.
The Far-Right party in Sweden, Sweden Democrats I wouldn’t put on the spectrum as RINOs in the US congress. They would possibly be considered Blue Dog Democrats in the USA but I do not think they are as conservative as the Blue Dogs.
Sweden Democrats have gone down periodically in the polls because all the other political parties have adopted parts of the Sweden Democrats very reasonable policies on budget & immigration. The moderate party has even gone further on the policies than the Sweden Democrats. It is sweet satisfaction to see the leftist parties saying the same things that the Sweden Democrats said more than a year ago only to be ridiculed.
Hoping for a Brexit tomorrow and a domino effect during the coming year. Cross your fingers everyone.
Actually, money does grow on trees. Wealth, however, does not. Neither are babies the product of spontaneous conception or delivered by a stork in the sixth month. There are quite a few liberal fantasies in the age of unqualified progress.
As for the refugee crises, anti-native policies, progressive wars, impulsive regime changes, and opportunistic politics have consequences.
Baby steps, I suppose.
Best case for Brexit is exemplified right here. Get out of the EU before you no longer have a national identity or self-sustaining economy.