The bureaucracy at work against the interests of the people whether they want it or not.
Oh, and you’re being lead to believe that the increase of Somalis and Iraqi refugees will be a boon for the local economy, all the while it’s being proven a massive drain on the economy elsewhere.
Small Finnish town welcomes return of asylum seekers
While the political debate over how many refugees Finland should accept rumbles on, immigration authorities are expanding the number of beds at reception facilities around the country.
Punkalaidun in south-west Finland, received good news this week: the local reception centre for asylum seekers is to re-open, bringing an employment boost for the small town.
The Immigration Service announced on Tuesday that it will re-activate the facility, which was shuttered last year. The first new residents are expected to arrive in August.
“This is positive news for us during the summer holiday,” says town manager Lauri Inna. He says the decision to open the centre again was the result of long-running negotiations between the municipality, the province, the Immigration Service and the south-western branch of the Finnish Red Cross.
Record number of refugees worldwide
The move was driven by a sharp rise in the number of asylum seekers arriving in the country this year.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR says that at the end of last year there were nearly 60 million refugees worldwide, more than ever in UN history.
While the political debate over how many refugees Finland should accept rumbles on, immigration authorities are expanding the number of beds at reception facilities around the country. For instance, the centre in Mänttä-Vilppula, closer to Jyväskylä, had added space for 50 more people.
The Punkalaidun centre will also be enlarged from its previous capacity of 120 to 150. Inna says that local officials are hoping it will be further expanded beyond that – as more asylum seekers mean more jobs for local residents.
Former employees being re-hired
Pauli Heikkinen, head of the regional division of the Finnish Red Cross, says that his organisation has been contacting former employees of the Punkalaidun facility to see whether they are available to return to work. Enough of them have already said yes to form the basic staff, he says. Some of them have been out of work since the centre closed last November.
During the first four months of the year, asylum applications in Finland rose by more than one third compared to the same third of last year. By early May, more than 1350 people had sought asylum, with the largest numbers from Iraq and Somalia.
