Nearly ten per cent of Swedish municipalities are giving failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants welfare payments despite a court decision last year which ruled they were not entitled to them.
A new survey of 244 Swedish municipalities showed that 23, almost one in ten, were giving welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers and illegal “paperless” immigrants, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
The findings come after a court case last year in which a failed asylum seeker remaining in Sweden requested welfare benefits from Vännäs municipality. The case led to a supreme court decision stating that failed asylum seekers living in Sweden were not entitled to benefits, but municipalities can still give benefits to them if the local government decides to do so.
In the majority of cases examined, the welfare benefits were framed as “emergency funds” rather than income benefits. In the heavily migrant populated southern city of Malmö, around 150 families are given emergency funds, while in Stockholm the number is around 120.
Ulf Kristersson, leader of the Moderate party, slammed the municipalities saying the benefit payments sent “dual signals”, and added: “I think it’s a problem that we are not clear in Sweden. It can not be that social assistance is provided for a longer period of time as if you had the right to stay.”
Despite many asylum seekers being rejected for asylum status in Sweden, a significant number has been allowed to stay due to pressures from far-left groups. The Swedish Church has also joined activist groups in trying to protect asylum seekers from deportations, last year slamming police who raided a church-sponsored migrant camp in Skåne.
In some cases, the Swedish government has attempted to deport illegal migrants back to their homelands; but on one occasion last November, the European Court of Justice rejected the deportation of a terror-linked migrant due to fears he may be tortured in his native Morocco.