Is this the legacy we want?

Sweden is making headlines all over the world this week. During 2016 we will send back 80 000 refugees applying for asylum in Sweden. Is this the legacy we are aiming for?

Late September I first wrote about the refugee situation in Sweden and Europe. I was upset about how Hungary were denying people who had been surviving crossing the Mediterranean, passing through the country, and the Finns creating human walls at the border between Sweden and Finland. I can’t believe how the politics in my country, all the Nordic countries and Europe has changed in only four months!

Norway establishes one of the toughest regulations in Europe when it comes to immigration. Sweden introduced ID controls on buses and trains (ferries were already a fact) on January 5. Only hours after, Denmark started checking IDs at the German border. Refugees are now taking taxi over Öresundsbron connecting Denmark and Sweden, and taxi drivers suddenly becomes traffickers! And Denmark threatens confiscating refugees assets, such as watches and jewelry, to pay for their stay in Denmark! This all is so twisted and wrong it makes me sick to my stomach, and it has nothing to do with my flue last week.

Transporters are fined if not doing the ID checks, in the same time the regulations for documenting the controls are vague. Swedes and Danes commuting over Öresund daily are counting several hours more for their commute, and business is already suffering. Even the Schengen Agreement is at risk because of the Swedish and Danish new regulations.

Rejecting 80 000 refugees isn’t a new decision. The regular number of denying asylum is about half of the applying, and as we had 160 000 during 2015, it adds up 80 000. The Swedish Police Authority is very concerned, since they even a normal year are failing to send off a large number of the refugees denied to stay here. And then there is another and very severe problem: most of the home countries people are leaving because of the terror and wars won’t let their citizens in. So where are they supposed to go?!

The Nordic countries are putting up their fences. It seems to work. There are less people at our borders. Meanwhile men, women and children are drowning in the cold January waters of the Mediterranean. And I feel ashamed. How did we end up here? Who are we? What happened?