The head of Switzerland’s Office of Migration was quoted as saying 99.5% of Nigerian asylum seekers are petty criminals. Well, that stirred things up a bit! You think!
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Alard du Bois-Reymond, director of Switzerland’s Office for Migration, has been on the job only since 1 January 2010, but if remarks he made to Swiss-German media over the weekend are a sign of what is to come, tensions over the country’s refugees policy could rise. The director told NZZ newspaper that his office will be setting up a task force which will bring together federal and cantonal offices to resolve what he referred to as Switzerland’s number one migration problem: Nigerians, the majority of whom are involved in petty crime and drug trafficking, he says.
“These people aren’t coming to Switzerland as refugees, but to make money”, he told NZZ, noting that 99.5 percent of Nigerians have no chance of being allowed to stay in the country.
His remarks prompted numerous negative reactions ranging from outrage to wonder that the head of a government office would stigmatize another nationality. Even populist media such as Le Matin went out of their way to point out that not all Nigerians are criminals, which du Bois-Reymond appeared to imply, interviewing asylum-seekers from Nigeria to tell their stories.
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Du Bois-Reymond’s comments may have been aimed at reassuring conservative elements in Swiss politics about reducing the number of illegal immigrants and reducing crime, several observers told GenevaLunch, but they have stirred up a complex debate.
Even the UN agrees, most Nigerians are not in need of asylum:
Susin Park, the head of UNHCR’s (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) office for Switzerland and Liechtenstein, says the UN organization is aware that a large number of Nigerian applicants for asylum in Switzerland have been found not to be in need of international protection.
Not to worry! It’s only boys involved in drug-related crime!
Du Bois-Reymond’s numbers outraged Mark Bamidele, president and CEO of the African Mirror Foundation, which recently set up an online African TV and radio service based in Bern. Bamidele says that while a majority of Nigerian refugee seekers are involved in petty crime it’s not 99.5 percent of those seeking asylum and “these are not drug dealers, they are boys peddling on the streets because it’s the only way they see to make some money.
Read the whole article, it is very interesting.