A recent survey reveals, over 79 percent of asylum-seekers and refugees in Sweden, majority of whom are Muslims have vacationed in their home country since fleeing to Europe by making false claims of their lives been at risk in their home countries.
A survey conducted by polling firm Novus on behalf of the Swedish online newspaper Bulletin revealed that 79 percent of refugees who claim to be fleeing war or persecution have voluntarily returned to their home country since making the trip to Sweden.
It said:
Vacationing in the country you fled from has in recent years become a topic of discussion within the European countries. Bulletin has commissioned Novus to investigate how people born abroad view re-migration, their children’s upbringing conditions and vacationing in their country of birth. The sample consists of 1,050 people born abroad, and the survey was conducted between 18 and 24 August.
The survey shows that only two percent of those born abroad plan to return to their country of birth in the future, while 16 percent say maybe. 76 percent believe that they intend to stay, among those who came to Sweden from a non-European country the percentage is 81 percent. 53 percent of those born abroad believe that Sweden is a better country for one’s children to grow up in compared to the home country, while 9 percent believe that Sweden is worse than the home country. 33 percent answer neither or.
In the Bulletin/Novus survey, 85 percent of people born abroad have at some point visited their home country as a holiday destination. Among those who came as family migrants, 92 percent have traveled back to their country of birth for vacation at least once, while the figure is 79 percent among those who came as refugees. The group of people born abroad in which the highest percentage have never vacationed in their country of birth are the adopted, where 41 percent have not visited the country of birth since they came to Sweden.
The topic of asylum-seekers returning to their home country to see friends and family has become a political issue across some European countries in recent years, with many critics believing such action is incompatible with their claim of seeking refuge due to being in danger in their home country.
The Swedish Migration Agency has pointed out: Refugee status can be revoked if it turns out that the person no longer needs international protection from their home country or if they have provided incorrect information about such a need”.
In Switzerland, an asylum seeker who returns home without special permission from the government risks losing their residence permit in the country.
Similarly, in Germany, a statement by then-Interior Minister Horst Seehofer in 2019 warned refugees they would face an investigation and could be stripped of their right to residency should they travel back to their homeland.
“If someone, a Syrian refugee, regularly vacations in Syria, he cannot honestly claim to be persecuted in Syria”, he said at the time.
In Norway, Aftenposten reported in 2018 that 24 percent of immigrants from Somalia, 40 percent of immigrants from Afghanistan, 55 percent of immigrants from Iran and 71 percent of immigrants from Iraq regularly traveled to their home country. According to Aftenposten, the data had been produced by Norway’s statistical authority SSB. A difference with Bulletins/Novus is that the Norwegian figures are the proportion of immigrants who regularly vacation in their home country, while the Swedish figures report those who traveled at least once.
Most countries allow people who have become citizens to return to their home country on vacation. At the same time, the fact that so many who originally came as refugees are returning indicates that the need for protection no longer applies, or perhaps was never so great.
Even in Germany, asylum seekers’ holiday trips to the home country became a political issue, as holiday trips were considered incompatible with the claim that one is fleeing for one’s life and seeking refuge in Germany due to danger in the home country. In a statement in 2019 , Germany’s then-interior minister Horst Seehofer warned refugees that they would be investigated and stripped of their residence permits when traveling to their homeland.
“If someone, a Syrian refugee, regularly vacations in Syria, he cannot honestly claim to be persecuted in Syria”, he said, adding “we would have to strip him of his refugee status”.
According to DW, for example, investigations in 2016 led to 66 refugees from Iraq and Syria being stripped of their residence permits, and were no longer considered to be in need of protection when they had gone on trips to their homeland.
