Sweden: Thousands of 2015 Crisis Migrants Have Allegedly Disappeared

Around 24,000 migrants who arrived during the height of the 2015 crisis are living in Sweden without permission or have disappeared, according to the migration board.

Of the 163,000 migrants who arrived in Sweden five years ago, the vast majority, 98,500, have been granted some form of residency. However, only 31,000 of those without a permit have left Sweden since 2015, leaving thousands of migrants unaccounted for.

Ten thousand migrants remain in the country with no residency permit at all. Another 14,000 have vanished, and Swedish authorities do not know where they are, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports. Another 8,000 are said to be in the process of having their asylum claim decided; many of them have applied more than once.

Earlier this year, it was reported that at least 18,420 of those given residency in 2015 have now been granted Swedish — and by extension European Union — citizenship, giving them access to free movement across the member states of the EU.

The vast majority of those granted citizenship are underage migrants, as Sweden allows minors migrants to wait just three years to be eligible for citizenship or two years if the child is regarded as stateless. Adults must wait at least five years before applying for citizenship status or four if they are stateless or have refugee status.

Over the last decade, Sweden has granted 1.2 million residency permits. Mass migration has been the main driving factor behind the country’s population growth in recent years as well.

Migrants still have a much higher unemployment rate than native Swedes, however. A report from 2019 claimed that as many as 90 per cent of the migrants who came in 2015 and received residency permits were unable to support themselves independently through working.

In 2020, largely due to travel restrictions to help stop the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, Sweden has seen its lowest population growth in 15 years. Coronavirus has also led to the highest death rate as of August in the country since a major famine in 1869.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com