Swedish municipality refused to pick up UN quota refugees
The Moderate-led municipality of Staffanstorp refused to collect four UN quota refugees allotted to them on Thursday, putting it at loggerheads with Sweden's Migration Agency.
Staffanstorp, whose Moderate mayor Christian Sonesson is known for populist gestures such as banning the headscarf, failed to send officials to pick up a family of four refugees when they arrived in Sweden on Thursday.
"What do you do with a municipality which refuses to follow Swedish law? This is pretty unique and it's hard to know how to respond," the Migration Agency's general director, Mikael Ribbenvik, told Sweden's TT newswire.
Migration minister Anders Ygeman accused Sonesson of creating a conflict to win votes.
"This is not the first time Staffanstorp has done this. This is an election year and they want to perform some kind of circus act," he said. "But in the past Staffanstorp has always ended up following the law."
Under Sweden's bosättningslagen or residency law, the four refugees should have been taken to Staffanstorp by the municipality, who had been given information from the Migration Agency on where to collect them. But the municipality sent no one to do so.
The Migration Agency has now sent the family to another municipality, said its press chief Guna Graufelds: "We didn't want to risk that the family got stuck, so we found someone else to take responsibility for them".
Sonesson on Monday told TT that the municipality was ready to take 244 Ukrainian refugees, but would not accept any more UN quota refugees while the war in Ukraine was ongoing. The municipality has been asked to take 36 quota refugees this year.
"This is the the first time a municipality has refused," Graufelds said. "They're not excused from this. There are no legal grounds for acting in this way."
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Staffanstorp, whose Moderate mayor Christian Sonesson is known for populist gestures such as banning the headscarf, failed to send officials to pick up a family of four refugees when they arrived in Sweden on Thursday.
"What do you do with a municipality which refuses to follow Swedish law? This is pretty unique and it's hard to know how to respond," the Migration Agency's general director, Mikael Ribbenvik, told Sweden's TT newswire.
Migration minister Anders Ygeman accused Sonesson of creating a conflict to win votes.
"This is not the first time Staffanstorp has done this. This is an election year and they want to perform some kind of circus act," he said. "But in the past Staffanstorp has always ended up following the law."
Under Sweden's bosättningslagen or residency law, the four refugees should have been taken to Staffanstorp by the municipality, who had been given information from the Migration Agency on where to collect them. But the municipality sent no one to do so.
The Migration Agency has now sent the family to another municipality, said its press chief Guna Graufelds: "We didn't want to risk that the family got stuck, so we found someone else to take responsibility for them".
Sonesson on Monday told TT that the municipality was ready to take 244 Ukrainian refugees, but would not accept any more UN quota refugees while the war in Ukraine was ongoing. The municipality has been asked to take 36 quota refugees this year.
"This is the the first time a municipality has refused," Graufelds said. "They're not excused from this. There are no legal grounds for acting in this way."
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