Sweden is offering migrants $34,000 to leave the country.
In saying "we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our migration policy," Migration Minister Johan Forssell said Sweden would increase its offer almost 35 times to entice migrants to go home beginning in 2026, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The current Swedish government program to entice migrants to leave — $976 per adult, $488 per child, a cap of $3,903 per family — is little used and was taken up by only one migrant in 2023, Forssell said.
The conservative Sweden Democrats, who finished second in the county's most recent general election in September 2022, have been propping up an administration led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, from the center-right Moderate Party, which finished third in the election, Newsweek reported.
Sweden Democrats spokesperson Ludvig Aspling said the incentive most likely would appeal to the several hundred thousand migrants who are either jobless or whose incomes were so low they needed state benefits to survive.
"That's the group we think would be interested," Aspling said, AFP reported.
The Swedish government has tightened asylum and immigration rules, and the country is on track to receive its lowest number of asylum applications since 1997, according to the Swedish Migration Agency.
"People should not come to Sweden, that is the signal from this government," said Martin Nyman, legal adviser with a Stockholm-based human rights organization, The New York Times reported.
Sweden has been known to be a refuge for those fleeing war-torn and strife-ridden countries. Most of its immigrants have come from conflict-ridden countries such as the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, and Iraq, AFP reported.
Long seen as a "humanitarian superpower," Sweden has struggled to integrate many of its newcomers in recent years, AFP reported.
"Sweden's migration policy is undergoing a paradigm shift," the government says on its website. "The Government is intensifying its efforts to reduce, in full compliance with Sweden's international commitments, the number of migrants coming irregularly to Sweden.
"Labor immigration fraud and abuses must be stopped and the 'shadow society' combated. Sweden will continue to have dignified reception standards, and those who have no grounds for protection or other legal right to stay in Sweden must be expelled."
Sweden has a population of 10.6 million people. The country accepted more than 250,000 refugees in mid-2023.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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