And, Swedes aren’t too happy about it if the commenters to this article are representative of the Swedish population as a whole. Hat tip: Baron at Gates of Vienna and Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.
Here is the story from The Local ( a Swedish publication):
Sweden granted protection to 8,700 asylum seekers in 2008, with Iraqis accounting for almost half the total, according to new figures from EU statistics office Eurostat.
Just four EU countries took in more asylum seekers than Sweden: France (11 500), Germany (10,700), the United Kingdom (10,200), and Italy (9,700).
[….]
Some 16,600 Iraqis won the right to settle in the 27-nation bloc in 2008, the Eurostat agency said. At 22 percent, that was far and away the biggest group among 76,300 people considered at risk if they returned to their countries.
Somalia furnished the next largest number, 9,500, followed by 7,400 Russians, 5,000 Afghans and 4,600 people from Eritrea in the Horn of Africa.
I don’t know if Sweden has a separate refugee resettlement program as we have. So the numbers may not be comparable, but in our refugee program we brought in 18,833 Iraqis in the last fiscal year (as compared to the whole of Europe with 16,600). I don’t know how many other Iraqis entered the US on their own and then asked for asylum. (Oops! Which reminds me I need to post on the latest from the US Open Borders crowd who don’t want asylees placed in detention until their cases are decided.)
See some previous posts on Muslim immigration to Sweden here and here (this one, Muslim Immigration Killing Sweden, continues to be one of our most visited posts at RRW. Why? I don’t know! Maybe it’s the catchy title!)