Thursday, August 07, 2008

The Asylum Crisis in Norway

I’ve posted recently on the accelerating asylum crisis in Norway, and The Observer has again volunteered to help, this time translating an article from today’s Opdalingen.

I noticed a couple of things when reading this article:

1. Inevitability. These foreigners must be taken in. It is our duty to accept them and assist them. We have no choice in the matter.
2. The abandonment of the localities. The local governments and police departments are mandated to accomplish the resettlement of the asylum seekers, but are denied the resources to do their jobs. The central government is saying to them, in effect, “Tough luck, guys — you’re on your own in this one.”

If Norway were a normal country, a revolution from below would already have occurred.

In his cover note accompanying the translation, The Observer had this to say about the situation:

Oslo PolitidistriktAs you can see in this article, the UDI (Norwegian Immigration Department) are expecting 15,000 asylum seekers to arrive in Norway this year alone. Now, if you take into consideration that the population of Norway is approximately 4.7 million people, and that the population of the USA is approximately 304 million people (according to Wikipedia), this means that if the same percentage of asylum seekers were to head for the USA, the number would be close to 970,000 people.

Can you imagine 970,000 asylum seekers arriving each year in the USA, with the American taxpayer having to foot the bill?

The UDI have already found accommodation for 4,000 asylum seekers so far this year, and they are expecting to find an additional 5,000 to 7,000 by the end of the year.

Again, if this had happened in the USA, the number of accommodations/beds for these asylum seekers would be almost 710,000.

How long can this go on?

And here’s his translation of the article:

The massive increase of asylum seekers arriving in Norway is causing major headaches for Norwegian municipalities.

Despite increased funding from the Norwegian Government, several Norwegian municipalities are facing financial difficulties due to the increased pressure put on their welfare services, caused by a major influx of new asylum seekers arriving in their communities

The influx of new asylum seekers has continued at a steady pace during the summer months. On average 30 new asylum seekers arrived in Norway every day in the first six months of 2008, and more are expected. The number of new asylum seekers has thus far reached 6,000 individuals, compared to 2,600 individuals a year ago, according to figures released by the UDI.
- - - - - - - - -
Tønsberg municipality has been ordered to find new accommodation for 50 asylum seekers. Tønsberg Mayor Per Arne Olsen (FRP/ Progress Party) predicts that this will cause major capacity problems for the municipality, even though the State Governmental grants for asylum seekers were raised on the 1st of July this year.

“We are talking about a huge strain being put on our welfare services in a very short period of time, and this will cause problems. It is one thing receiving x amount of money per asylum seeker from the UDI, but it’s a totally different thing having to expand the welfare services, hire qualified staff, and find suitable premises where these services can be conducted,” Olsen says to the NTB (Norwegian News Service Agency)

Only covers half of the costs

The FRP Mayor can reveal that the local department responsible for teaching asylum seekers has to use temporary site offices as classrooms, and that the PP-service, the child protection agency and the local health department have all voiced their concerns regarding this latest influx of asylum seekers.

“It’s easy for the staff of the UDI to sit in their offices in Oslo and come up with rough estimates of how much it is going to cost to find new accommodation for these people, but money alone can’t solve this problem when the capacity in the affected communities has reached the breaking point,” Olsen says.

The deputy Mayor of Tønsberg, told Dagbladet (Norwegian newspaper) on Tuesday that estimates carried out by the municipality’s own people clearly show that the Government grants only cover half of the costs associated with this latest increase of asylum seekers into their community

Agnar Kaarbø, public spokesman for the UDI, is sympathetic to the concerns voiced by the various municipalities regarding the dramatic increase in numbers of asylum seekers, but feels that the new increase in funding should be sufficient to cover the additional costs in finding new accommodations for these asylum seekers.

“Some municipalities have contacted us and expressed their concerns, but others have told us that they have the capacity to take on more asylum seekers. The influx of asylum seekers to Norway is at the moment at an all-time high, and it is a national responsibility for us to accept them and look after them. We do inform the municipalities on a regular basis about the need to build new asylum centers, but we realize that this information may in some cases have been unsatisfactory,” Kaarbø says to the NTB.

The police departments’ needs must also be met

A decision was recently made to build new asylum centers in nine different Norwegian cities. In Andøya in Vesterålen [small community in Northern Norway] the newly proposed asylum center will be built 150 kilometers away from the nearest police station. In an interview with NRK (Norwegian broadcasting Corporation) on Tuesday, Elisabeth Aspaker, a member of the Norwegian Justice committee representing Høyre [the Conservatives] described this as unacceptable from a security perspective.

The Chairman of the Norwegian Police Union, Arne Johannesen, demands that the affected police departments get an increase in resources from the government when new asylum centers are built in their areas, or when existing centers are being expanded.

“As of today there are no such guarantees. A more suitable solution would be to allow for extra funding for those police departments which simply can’t cope with the increased work load that new asylum centers represent,” Johannesen says to the NTB.

An increase in resources should be automatic

The police union boss stresses that the police are not only dealing with issues of crime when it comes to asylum centers.

“An asylum center may take up a lot of the local police department’s resources, and this puts a huge pressure on the police,” he says.

Anne Marit Bjørnflaten (Labour Party), Chairman of the Justice committee, points out that the police branch responsible for dealing with asylum seekers was allocated an additional 40 million kroner in the revised national budget, to cope with the increasing numbers of asylum seekers arriving in Norway.

“It is only natural that the establishment of a new asylum center, like the one proposed in Andøya, will lead to an increase in resources for the police. But in the end it’s up to the local chief of police to manage his staff in such a way that the local security is not compromised and that the current status quo is maintained, even with the distances we’re dealing with in this case,” she says to the NTB.

Postscript — some figures:

  • Governmental funding to municipalities where the UDI (Norwegian Immigration Department) are establishing asylum centers.
  • 392,000 kroner a year per asylum center.
  • 4,200 kroner a year per ordinary resident.
  • 11,100 kroner a year per single underage resident.
  • Four out of the 61 national asylum centers have been classified as specialized centers, catering for asylum seekers with special needs. For these centers the municipalities are paid 102,000 kroner a year per resident.
  • In addition to this the UDI are financing several health clinics around the country looking after asylum seekers. As of today there are 61 asylum centers in Norway. UDI have so far this year managed to establish an additional 4,000 new beds/accommodations for these asylum seekers, and are planning to establish another 5,000 to 7,000 beds/accommodations by the end of the year.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you imagine 970,000 asylum seekers arriving each year in the USA, with the American taxpayer having to foot the bill?

Ummm. yes, but we call them illegal aliens.

Ashan said...

"Again, if this had happened in the USA, the number of accommodations/beds for these asylum seekers would be almost 710,000."

It's in the millions in the US, costing taxpapers billions in money, low-paying, unskilled jobs and safety standards. Crime has skyrocketed in area heavily populated by illegals. Needless to say, they aren't all Mexicans. Muslim terrorists and facilitators have crossed into the US on routes taken by Mexican illegals because there isn't extensive fencing or border controls.

Fjordman said...

The Americans are right: Not just in real numbers, but also per capita, immigration is much bigger to the USA. Which is one of the reasons why I still live in Europe. Since the entire Western world is nuts, it makes little sense to move to another Western country which is equally nuts, or perhaps more so.

But yes, Norway is bad, and getting worse by the day. I should probably write more about Norway since it's my country after all, but it somehow makes me more depressed to write about my own country than about the West in general. If the current levels of immigration continue, this nation won't "change," it will simply cease to exist in a few short decades.

Sweden is the worst country overall, and Malmø the worst city, in Scandinavia, but I'm pretty sure Oslo is the worst of the capital cities. Oslo has to be one of the most rapidly deteriorating cities in Europe right now. It almost makes me ashamed of my nationality every time I visit my capital city.

Anonymous said...

I agree Fjordman. American and Canadian government officials are every bit as outrageous and ridiculous about immigration and political correctness as the Scandinavians.

Only when threatened with loss of their jobs (losing elections) will they step up to to the absolute minimum to enforce existing law. The non-elected career gov't officials have no such restraint. It's the same sanctioned incompetence that's undermining both our nations.

Government elitists poking their respective citizenries in the eye is a universal problem.

babs said...

Last summer, the American people waged a huge battle against their politicians regarding illegal immigration. The citizenry was so incensed by the politicians that they overloaded and shut down the Capitol Hill phone system calling in complaint.
We sent a message loud and clear that we WOULD NOT assimilate into our country 20 million illegals. It is bad enough that they have crippled our social services of every stripe. We would not buy into the idea that 20 million needed confurred upon them the full priveledges of American citizenship.
Well, this caught the politicians quite on the wrong foot; John McCain and his side kick Lindsey Graham particularly. Starting at a base line of calling all who disagreed bigots, racists, and every other pejoritive that they could conjur, they finally got the message.
While I do not have a lot of faith in having this issue go entirely my way, I do think that the elite of this country have been forced to take their objective underground. But, it took a massive uprising of the "common citizen" to get this far.
The Norwegian elite have a really good schtick going, tugging on the heartstrings of the indigenous with the concept of asylum seekers. It is a variation on the "white man's burden" just as our American elites preyed on the idea that the poor of South and Central America were only looking to better their lives and the lives of their families by coming to our nation and destroying our educational and health systems, supressing our wages and burdening us with a massive under class... In the name of compassion we should allow this to happen!

Henrik R Clausen said...

The American situation is weird. I recently read some Thomas Woods, and was startled to see that the constitution is not really being followed. Revered, yes - followed no.

My apologies if I step on any US toes, but as far as I can see, the US is in a state of permanent constitutional crisis. Which in a sense is worse than the acute crisis we have here in Denmark, for our crisis is visible, people take it seriously and react.

I recommend the Thomas Woods books, of course :)

Solo said...

Speaking of moving around.

Just a few years ago I had this growing desire to move back to Europe since that's the culture and the environment that were more natural to me than the american melting pot. Gradually though, that desire started to subside and the more I learned about what have become of poor old Europe, the less inclination I had to be doing something to make that, now former, goal a reality.

Yes, US is sick with the disease of latino (primarily) immigration with all of the negative benefits of the 3rd world hell-holes that they are bringing with them no matter where they settle. Everybody is aware of them, volens nolens, since 'in your face' drunk driving, trash-sowing, rapes, and other side effects of their presence is hard to ignore now.

However, other countries are going to fall first. There is still a significant potential left in this young country where the idea of personal, political, and economical freedom is still very much appreciated. There is also some young blood and families of european ancestries are frequent and fruitful. The institution of family is still a positive concept here despite all the latest
efforts by 'progressives' to nullify its significance.

Therefore, I'm staying here. I'll be visiting the continent where I grew up, which has a glorious cultural past etc.
But there is no future there. Not for long, alas.

As a father to my kids I have to think ahead on where it would be safe for them to reside decades from now. Sorry, but it looks like US is the only hope left.

Anonymous said...

Henrik,

You are correct. You are not stepping on any toes. The US has been in a state of Constitutional crisis since 1787. There is always a fight going on about something. It's that individual liberty thing. There's always some a-hole coming along trying to take it away. Of course we could just give it up, become part of the collective, wait for instructions, and spare ourselves all the crisis, but that's not who we are.

If you think that people do not take things seriously and react here in the US, look a little closer. You may be unaware of groups like the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the NRA, and many more groups that form from individual citizens banding together. It's a slice of America that the media would rather dismiss or demonize. Given their leftist/socialist leanings it's no surprise.

Babs is correct above. It was a citizen revolt that stopped the US government's intention to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens here in the US. Government tried to force it upon us. The people stopped it. Nobody else.

Many of us are wondering why it's taking so long for a similar revolt to happen there in Europe. Nothing we've seen so far comes anywhere near close to last year's immigration revolt in the US. By our standards, the tea should have been dumped in the harbor a long, long time ago!

BefriaMedia said...

Fjordman, i would like to clearfy some issues on immigration to the USA. Sure the numbers are very high, however almost every single immigrant to the USA go there to work and make money, they will make much more compared to the homecountry so they want to work, also illegals. Very few will cause trouble since they can't get social welfare like most immigrants get in europe.

Hispanic immigration have resulted in high costs for new schools, hospital care etc and the little tax they pay is insufficient in the US. So there is a social cost in usa even if the hispanics work, because a low income earner don't pay tax or very little tax. Some say the benefit of low cost labor outweigh the social cost. Due to political pressure recently there are a lot of illegals going back home because its more difficult to get drivers licenses, ID and everthing else required to live in the USA.

Europe (and Canada) is the total opposite from USA, almost all immigrants from outside europe arrive to live on social welfare, 97% of alla refugees going to sweden, my old country, are not real refugees.

What I observe in sweden is huge numbers of social welfare cases entering the coutry getting a lot of welfare but don't work or adopt for the rest of their life. Their kids have nothing to do, thats why 4000 schools are burned in sweden and immigrants are overwhelming the swedish society with massive crimewaves. Big cities in Europe now look like arabcountries in many parts and are not safe. The cost to keep the housingsectors filled with welfare refugees cost the taxpayers most of the sum they pay in taxes. Europe need to reverse the flow of masses of immigrants and muslims, if they don't they will go the same way as Lebanon.

I do agree with babs and solo.

Anonymous said...

It's the same everywhere, floods of muslims whose intention is to destroy our civilisation. I've posted a swedish link to this excellent text on my blog.