Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
Last year, more than 18,500 Iraqis sought asylum in Sweden. By comparison, the U.S. processed 734 Iraqi asylum applicants in 2007, and Britain handled 2,075, although these countries are the main military forces in the war.
Sweden initially granted residency permits to nearly all Iraqis who applied, and even last year 72% of Iraqi asylum seekers got permission to stay. Those granted residency are eligible for 18 months of Swedish-language and employment-skills training, plus about $1,490 a month (reduced to $360 after 18 months) in cash benefits.
But the doorway is narrowing sharply.
Not only have the new legal standards meant a drop in approvals, with only about 43% of applicants winning their cases so far this year, but those who lose are getting booted out.
Since February, 290 Iraqis have been ordered expelled from Sweden and have returned voluntarily to Iraq, according to the Swedish Migration Board. Ten others have been forcibly returned.
Nowhere has the Iraqi migration been felt more than here in Sodertalje, an industrial town of 83,000 people south of Stockholm.
The city has been flooded with refugees from Iraq, mainly Christian Assyrians who have been among the most heavily threatened populations since the war began in 2003. Naseir is a member of another threatened Iraqi minority, the Mandaeans, who revere John the Baptist.
Since 2006, nearly 7,000 Iraqis have streamed into town, and 1,200 more are expected this year. Combined with other mainly Christian immigrants who fled in earlier years from Iraq, Syria and Turkey, foreign-born residents and their children now make up nearly 40% of the city's population.
The city has urged authorities to settle new immigrants in other parts of the country, where they are more likely to find jobs and apartments.
"The whole thing's gone totally haywire. We have more Iraqis who have come here to Sodertalje than went to the whole United States," said Ulla Glantz, 64, a lifelong resident of the city.
Even their compatriots say the newcomers are overwhelming the city, taking up apartments and driving down wages for those who can find jobs.
"When I came, nobody gave me a house, no money. . . . I am working for that all this time, I'm working every day," said Aydin Sharro, 42, an Assyrian who immigrated to Sodertalje from Turkey as a child in 1976, when his father was hired at the local truck factory. "But all them, none of them are working, and they expect to have the same as I have.
Copyright 2010 Los Angeles Times
AFF P96 David o Torwald i centrum precis som människan är i PP!
NOW YOU KNOW WHO AYDIN SHARRO IS SÖDERTÄLJE; but who is David, 14, and what does he dream of becoming, and -----------
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M. Savemark