The Swedish government announced Thursday that it would be offering illegal immigrants $34,000 to leave the country and return to their homeland. This is an effort by the Scandinavian country to tighten asylum and other immigration laws.
Sweden already offers a lump sum for migrants to return home, but only one of them utilized the program in 2023, the government said. The $34,000 payouts will go into effect in 2026. The new offer is 35 times the current amount, which is $976 per adult and $3,903 per family, as reported by Newsweek.
“We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our migration policy,” Migration Minister Johan Forssell told reporters Thursday, presenting the government’s latest move to crackdown on illegal immigration.
Sweden, a country historically known for its open-arms policies toward migrants, has embraced a harder stance on immigration in recent years as the topic has become an increasingly contentious issue. Particularly after the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats came in second in the most recent general election, which took place in Sept. 2022. The Sweden Democrats have garnered support from Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who is a member of the center-right Moderate Party, which placed third in the election. These two parties have been working together against the Swedish Social Democrats, the party that won the general election but failed to gain control of parliament after the right-wing bloc garnered the most seats.
In an interview with reporters, Ludvig Aspling, a lawmaker and spokesperson for the Sweden Democrats on immigration, proposed that the policy would be most appealing to migrants who were either long-term unemployed or relied on state welfare.
He said the grant increase should appeal to these migrants and encourage them to go back home: “The grant has been around since 1984, but it is relatively unknown, it is small, and relatively few people use it.”
According to the Swedish Migration Agency, the country is on the brink of receiving its lowest number of asylum applications since 1997 this year as a result of the new Swedish government’s implementation of stricter asylum and immigration regulations.
“The government’s efforts have produced results,” said Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister for Migration. “The number of asylum applications is looking to be historically low, asylum-related residence permits continue to decrease and Sweden has net emigration for the first time in 50 years. This development toward sustainable immigration is necessary to strengthen integration and reduce social exclusion.”
