Read this news report on Sweden from Tahnee H.
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In the News
Tahnee H.
Sweden’s immigration crisis has pushed leaders to offer immigrants $34,000 to leave the country. A Swedish government program was created to offer migrants $3,903, as the cap amount, per family. This financial incentive was not very effective as only one person took that offer in 2023 and it is not very well known. The current Prime minister has elevated the incentive to $34,000 in hopes that there will be a significant change in the immigration crisis. This offer may be attractive towards migrants who aren’t set up financially yet with steady jobs or education and can hopefully be a pull to return to their home country.
Since the installment of new government officials in 2022, there have been tighter restrictions on asylum seekers and the numbers of new migrants have decreased dramatically since 1997. The Minister of Migration, Maria Malmer Stenergard, said that the stricter control they have on migrants coming through will help with the crisis by being able to have a sustainable immigration population, as well as better integration and therefore reducing the amount of exclusion of immigrants because of language and cultural barriers.
Gang violence has been an issue in Sweden, as well as Denmark, amongst youth. Gang members have been recruiting young Swedes to carry out violence like shootings in Denmark. Gangs have been targeting Swedish youth specifically, to carry out these atrocities, because federal consequences for a major crime by a minor is spending some time in juvenile centers, which is a much softer punishment than Denmark’s, which can be up to 16 years in jail for a youth. Denmark and Sweden’s justice ministers have been working hard to target gang leaders to rid this multi-country gang violence.
Sweden is also teaming up with Finland on the NATO front. Sweden and Finland recently became members of NATO in the last year. Sweden is collaborating with Finland on leading Swedish troops to the Finnish-Russian border for more boots-on-the-ground NATO security. This is called Forward Land Forces and NATO will officially appoint a country to lead these forces but Sweden will most likely be chosen. Finland is hoping they will get Swedish NATO troops on the Finnish border by next year or so.
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