Photo : Julien Harneis
Norway’s Refugee Dilemma!
Holy cow! It’s not just stunning that many towns are saying NO!, it is stunning that they are even given a choice in Norway of whether they want any refugees at all! Even with our Constitutional tradition of “States Rights,” American cities and states are not given an opportunity to say to the US State Department—sorry we can’t afford more refugees!
Here is the news from The Nordic Page:
Aftenposten writes that only 64 of the 368 municipalities agreed to accept as many refugees as the government wants. 27 municipalities simply reject, while 204 municipalities receive less than the government has requested. 73 municipalities have not even responded to the request of Integration and Diversity Directorate, IMDI.
Later in the article we learn this about who is going to Norway—mostly Muslim young men.
The refugee and asylum seeker definitions are similar to the ones used by the US.
There are two main groups of refugees who come to Norway. The first group consists of asylum seekers who come to Norway on their own initiative, and the second group consists of resettlement refugees. Resettlement refugees are refugees who cannot return to their home country and cannot be granted residence in the country in which they are staying. Resettlement refugees’ cases are processed by and, they are recognised by, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) before they arrive in Norway. The Norwegian parliament, the Storting, stipulates a quota for the number of resettlement refugees Norway accepts each year. In 2010, Norway accepted 1,300 resettlement refugees. Most of the 2010 quota was reserved for Eritrean, Afghan, Palestinian, Burmese and Iranian refugees. Minimum 55 per cent were to be women and girls, while 15 per cent of the places were for vulnerable female refugees.
Also, there are asylum seekers who come to Norway on their own initiative and apply for protection from the Norwegian authorities. In the end of September, the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) had received 7,299 asylum applications. Many of these applicants come from countries badly affected by war or previous conflicts. The biggest groups of asylum seekers come from Eritrea, Somalia and Afghanistan. Not everyone who applies for asylum in Norway is entitled to protection or a residence permit.
[….]
A total of 163 500 persons with a refugee background were living in Norway on 1 January 2012. These persons accounted for 3.3 per cent of the Norwegian population, and 30 per cent of all immigrants in Norway. The two largest groups were persons with a refugee background from Iraq and Somalia.
[….]
Male refugees were overrepresented, with around 10 200 more men than women as at 1 January 2012.
There is a lot more, read it all!