Sweden Debates Iraq Refugee Policy

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Iraqi refugees desperate to flee the violence in their country pay more than $15,000 each to people-traffickers to bring them to Sweden, considered to be the most welcoming of non-Arab nations.

This small country of 9.1 million people, which played no part in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, received nearly 18,600 Iraqi refugees in 2007. By contrast, only 1,608 Iraqis were admitted as refugees to the United States in 2007.

But Sweden's sympathetic attitude could be shifting, and along with it the country's liberal asylum policy.

A recent decision by the Superior Court of Migration said that Iraqis must now prove they are personally in danger of persecution before being granted asylum. As a result, only 42 percent of Iraqi refugees were allowed to stay in Sweden in January, compared with 93 percent in January 2007.

The influx of Iraqis has resulted in several highly publicized criminal cases involving immigrants at a time when right-wing, anti-immigration politicians in Sweden are gaining popularity.

Last August, thousands of people protested in the streets after editorial cartoons showing the prophet Mohammed as a dog were published in a small Swedish newspaper.

Meanwhile, new immigrants are crowding classrooms and placing a greater burden on Sweden's cradle-to-grave welfare benefits.

"Some of our schools here get 20 to 40 new kids a week from Iraq," Tobias Billstrom, Sweden's migration minister, said in an interview. "Certainly such a huge inflow of people puts a strain on society."

Billstrom criticized the United States for "not doing more to ease the burden."

In 2006, for example, Sweden took in 9,000 Iraqis compared with only 200 in the United States.

Considering the population difference, Sweden's intake of Iraqi refugees "would be equivalent to the United States taking in 500,000," Billstrom said.

The United Nations estimates that more than 4 million Iraqis have been displaced since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, making them the world's largest group among asylum-seekers. Some 2 million Iraqis have left the country, many settling in Syria and Jordan.

But outside the region Iraqi refugees generally have opted to go to Sweden. Some Iraqi families are willing to pay as much as $40,000 to be taken there, said George Joseph, head of Caritas Sweden, a Catholic relief organization.

"People in Iraq sell everything they have to pay the huge price to come here," he said.

Ahmed, 27, counts himself lucky. He left his mother and two sisters behind in the southern Iraqi town of Nasirayah in the spring of 2007 to flee to Sweden.

Last month he finally received his permanent residence permit.

Ahmed, who has huge dark eyes and wears Nike running shoes, said he paid $17,000 to be taken by truck together with two other men on a two-week journey from Baghdad that carried him through Syria, Turkey, and Germany.

"I had no choice, I couldn't stay in Iraq. It was too dangerous. There is no safety or protection for anyone anymore," said Ahmed, who would not give his family name.

He said that most people smuggled out of Iraq spend two to four months on the road.

"I was lucky because my smugglers were honest and knew what they were doing," he said. "There is no longer any other way to get out of Iraq then by paying smugglers. All countries including Syria demand a visa and that is almost impossible to get. Everyone uses smugglers."

Ahmed, who lives in a home for refugees in the city of Malmo, south of Stockholm, said he worked in construction in Iraq but that he plans to learn Swedish and study business in Sweden.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials defend their record on assistance to Iraqi refugees.

The United States has given more than $122 million to Iraq's neighbors to aid refugees. The United States also has pledged to take in 12,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008.

Laura Keehner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, pointed out that the United States had no refugee program out of Iraq until last May.

"We literally had to start this refugee program from zero," she said.

Keehner said that about 20 percent of Iraqi applicants are denied entry for security, medical, or other reasons.

"From the time the refugee begins the process to the time they enter the United States is only four to six months," she said. "We take this issue very seriously and our process is faster than any other such program's process in the world."

But critics charge that the U.S. efforts still fall embarrassingly short.

Michael Kocher, deputy vice president of the New York-based International Rescue Committee, which works on refugee issues, said the Bush administration is downplaying the refugee crisis.

"The U.S. response to the Iraqi refugee crisis is best characterized as on-going willful denial," he said.

Kocher emphasized that many of the refugees have direct ties to the U.S. coalition in Iraq, including translators, drivers, and office staff.

"They are in danger in Iraq precisely because of these ties," he said.

Kocher pointed out that the United States admitted about 1 million Vietnamese refugees — about 135,000 of them in a six-month period in 1975.

But U.S. officials said that many factors have caused delays including holidays such as Ramadan and Christmas.

And, in the end, it's not easy to screen people from a region laden with terrorists.

"We are living in a different time now than in the 1970s," Keehner said.