Reader Questions

My post from the other day gave rise to a few more questions, which I will endeavour to answer as fully as possible.

KC- I’ve been trying to figure out how the authorities were thinking when they decided there was “no armed conflict” going on in Iraq. I have friends deployed there right now and I know their tour in Iraq is no holiday. Some of them may not make it back Stateside alive – but Swedish Migratory Authorities still maintain that it’s safe to send back minors to the country. I can’t make these two pictures come together – but maybe I’m just stupid.

Given a choice, I’m sure most of these kids wouldn’t leave their homes and families behind and embark on a dangerous journey through strange countries. Most often they are in the hands of smugglers who see them as commodities to be freighted from point A to B at a price (average cost is reportedly $7,000 and up) – with no gurantees what so ever that they will actually make it to their destination. I can’t even begin to imagine how their families feel when they have made the decision to send their 14 year-old to another country under those circumstances.

Laurie – Once they arrive in Sweden they are initially housed in so called Transit Centers until they can be placed in a home run by a county somewhere. The Transit Centers are supposed to be a short-term and temporary solution, but that doesn’t always work. Of 290 counties more than a hundred are not accepting refugees (some of their reasons NOT to makes my blood boil!!!) so some of these children end up living in TC’s for months on end. Once they have been assigned to a county they are housed along with other refugee children in a home with staff present around the clock. Ours, Pangea, used to be dormitory for children who lived too far from town to go by bus (in the 50’s and 60’s) – then used as daycare during a number of years before it was renovated to become home for 20 youths.  In other places they have converted apartments and other buildings, owned by the counties, for the same use.  After they have received permanent status and turned 18, they are allowed to move out on their own. They still get some assistance from the county, but nothing much more than what a Swedish youth will get when moving from their parents.

On Refugees and Migration

The other day, I got a question from Laurie from Dog Hair in my Coffee because she wanted to know something about the what’s and why’s of our system with a Migration board, Court and Migration Court of Appeal.

I’ll try and explain it all without this becoming a dissertation that not a single person will be able to muddle through.

Some background:

Sweden has been known as a country with fairly benevolent regulations concerning people seeking refugee status or asylum here. Previously, this was definitely true – as evidenced by the number of persons from various countries who has obtained permanent status here during the last 50 years or so. In the 50’s Sweden welcomed a number of persons from Hungary, after 1968 they came from Czechoslovakia, in the 70’s from Chile, during the next decade or so from Turkey and during the 90’s from the former Yugoslavia and other Eastern bloc countries. The process was fairly straight forward, people came here and were allowed to start a new life. I might add that in those days, Sweden needed young and strong people, willing to work for low wages…

During the last decade, there has been a significant change in attitude, though. This is however something that people in countries torn asunder by war, buckling under inhuman dictatorships or those living under other horrendous circumstances, have not been aware of. On the contrary, at the beginning of numerous “underground railways” the word has been that once you arrive in Sweden, you’d be practically home-free. Unfortunately, there has been some nasty changes in policy – at least if you ask me.

Iraqi citizens are (almost summarily) denied visas because Swedish authorities have decided that there is “no armed conflict” in the country.

Persons hailing from countries like Libya had better be able to show evidence of torture if they hope to stay here…

The Migration Board will deem someone “stateless” and yet try and deport them to the country they were in before arriving here.

Some decisions handed down by the Migration Board defies logic – such as the one given  my youth, -W-. Such as all other children they have denied asylum or refugee status. Such as deporting families who have lived in the country for years and years while their case has gone through the mill… (However, we no longer need workers from other countries…)

In recent years there has been quite a few children (mostly boys) between roughly 13 and 16 who have arrived here on their own. Sometimes they are called “anchor children” as they are believed to have been sent here for a reason. If they obtain permanent status in the country, they can apply for their families to be granted visas. I’m sure some of them came here for that reason – but I think the majority left their native country for other reasons. Like so many of the boys here have said “Do you think I’d leave my home country and my family, if I had a future there?”.

When they arrive in Sweden, they are processed in one of the bigger cities in the south and then placed in a county that has agreed to welcome “unattended minors” while their case is tried. The Migration Board will then interview the child two or three times with a lawyer and an interpreter in attendance. The questions may seem fairly straightforward but some of them are definitely posed in an effort to make the person contradict themselves. If the result is that the person is not granted a visa, an appeal is made to the Migration Court and the whole process sort of starts all over. Most of the time, the Court will make a decision without hearing the person “personally” – but about 20% are actually called to the proceedings and allowed to present their case. Another negative answer leaves a final option  – appealing to the Migration Appeal Court – where a limited number of cases are tried.

I’m sure I haven’t been able to explain all of this properly so if anyone reading this feels even more confused now – keep on asking questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Good News – Maybe

Here’s something to be thankful for – I think the lawyer assigned to –W- must be one of the better ones in the Migration racket. Yes, I’m calling the handling of refugees and asylum seekers a racket, but not for the reasons you may think. More about that later.

We had a lengthy talk with the lawyer over the phone yesterday (an interpreter was present in his office) and today I received a copy of the preliminary appeal. When I read the decision by the Migration Board, I literally drowned in their rather convoluted explanations as to on what grounds they had made their decision to deport –W-.

Once the lawyer had peeled off all of that, there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to the 9 pages of officialese. Instead, it became painfully obvious how weak their arguments were, especially since later reports from various agencies clearly refute some of the “findings” they based their decision on.

A stateless person is under no circumstances welcome back to the country where –W- lost his parents and spent 5 years in an orphanage, and most certainly NOT someone of Palestinian ethnicity.

Although this country has ratified various agreements forbidding torture and racial persecution that is by no means a guarantee that these agreements are enforced by national authorities.

They have even ratified the UN children’s convention – but that does in no way guarantee that it is being honoured on any level of society. (indeed, Sweden is also a signatory to that convention, but we deport children to countries like Iraq, Yemen and Libya.)

Our hope now is that the Migration Court will see things differently than what the Board did. They do review cases from a different point of view than what the Migration Board does. Their mandate is to follow the letter of the law and the decisions are taken by persons trained in law.

Why do I think Migration is a racket? Well, I still can’t shake this nagging suspicion that –W- was denied permanent status as part of a drive to fulfill some quota or other… Much like there is a whole lot of sobriety controls along the roads when the police need to up their numbers of drunk drivers caught…

Amazing Grace

Today -W- and I had an appointment at the offices of the County Family Services. They are in fact in charge of the asylum seeking youths – I am just appointed as trustee to look after their affairs, arrange for dental apppointments and the like. This appoitment was booked a few weeks ago while we were sure -W- would be granted his permanent status and I had in mind to cancel it yesterday, since everything has changed in the last few days. I forgot to do that, so we had no choice but to attend… -W- looked so sad when I picked him up, but once we came in to the social worker he sat up, holding his head high. He answered politely and with integrity to all questions even that some of them must have felt like a slap in the face (How do you envision your future?)…

At the end of the hour, he stood up, shook hands with the social worker and thanked her.   Could I have acted with such grace? No, I highly doubt it!

This view (again from the window at work) brought home what it was that became Ted Harrison’s inspiration when he first arrived in the Yukon. Skies like  this sustain me ( at least for a few hours…) for him it became a distinguished career as a Northern artist.

Small Blessings

Reading this post by Clare from “The House…” came back to me this afternoon when I went for a walk under the full moon with Loki. I had planned on walking along the ski-trail but since there seemed to be quite a few skiers around, I headed down a snowmobile trail. Not because the trail was good – quite on the contrary I had a good 15 cm of powder on top of a not-so-good base… Loki loved it though and I’m sure I got as good a cardio-workout as if I would have spent an hour in the gym. The moon gave enough light that I didn’t even need my flash light – I could see Loki as he was cavorting around in the snow and racing to catch up with me when he’d lagged behind.

I am truly blessed, living in a place where it takes me less than 10 minutes to stand in a place where the moon is my only light and I can’t hear the sound of cars or anything else!

Not one of my better shots – just a sample of the view I have from my office.

Oh yes, the trip yesterday to the Migration Board… I could see on -W- as we got in the car, that he already knew what the decision would be.  After the customary introductions by the translator and everyone else, the Officer began reading the decision. We were given the opportunity to ask questions as she went along – even if it’s essentially an exercise in futility. The decision is taken by Officer NN in X and delivered by Officer BB in Y – to ensure that the latter can say “I’m not the one who made the decision based ont he information  given by you (in this case -W-) – I only read it to you and answer your questions.”

Well, I suppose another reason is to ensure that Migrations Officers aren’t attacked or made offers that would corrupt them…

In any event – I took copious notes which I’ll be sending to the lawyer who in his turn is preparing an appeal to the Migration Court. This has to be done within three weeks of yesterday, but nothing much is bound to happen before the end of this year. The Court can of course reach another conclusion and failing that we still have the higher Migration Court to appeal to. As a matter of fact - I have an ugly suspicion that this was a decision made to fill one quota or the other… as in a general quota for negative decisions for the year, or an individual Officer’s personal quota… I haven’t got the faintest idea why -W- was denied asylum, given his circumstances.

No On 9 Pages

Today we received the decision regarding  -W’s- request for asylum. The Migration Board announced their decision over 9 pages, interspersing snippets from what he told them during various interviews with all of the legal reasons why they cannot grant him asylum or even special refugee status, given that he is an orphan.

Their answer was still NO.

Next step? An appeal to the Migration Court, requesting that he be granted opportunity to appear in front of them personally (a slim chance, but always something).

Me – I’m  speechless.

Running Free

Laurie from Dog Hair in my Coffee asked yesterday how I could let Loki and his dad off the leashes and let them run loose. Well… Where should I start?

First of all, I’ve almost always lived close to areas where it was/is possible to let a dog run loose. Around town we have places like the tiny lake I wrote about yesterday (close to Boulder Ridge I’ve mentioned a number of times) . There’s also dead-end roads leading to cottages,  the shooting range and sandpits – not to mention miles and mailes of prepared trails. During winter we have no less than 10 km of prepared trails that can be used both for skiing and walking – in the summertime oodles more.

Secondly, both Loki and his dad (Raikko) have been trained to be off leash from a young age. They are  both  fine walking WITH a leash, which is the way we do it in the morning and at lunch and I don’t always let him off in the evening, even if I’d like to. He sure is a lot easier to deal with after he’s had a chance to expend some energy on romping around.

Like now tonight. My BFF has a 12 week-old puppy (Zorro)  - a real tough little number . They played together for about an hour earlier this evening and Loki has barely moved since we got home.

Herding dogs are  - generally – easy to train. They want to keep track of their herd – and for the lack of sheep or reindeer to boss around – they’ll keep track of their master or mistress. That’s something to work with when training. I started Loki off the leash from our first walk together – and except for a few times when the walk has become longer than I had planned, I’ve never lost him even out of my sight. Raikko is a slightly different matter… He has some hunting instincts that has made him take off a few times, but he’s never been gone for more than maybe 10 minutes and that was when he was chasing after a moose…  Come to think of it -T- who was also his son would often do that – set off after some reindeer that he chased until he felt they were safely outside his territory and then come back, prancing with pride!

BTW. The one thing I’ve never tried is obedience training in class. My uncle and cousin who were both reindeer herders taught me how to deal with dogs and since they both had well-behaved dogs, I figured that was enough. For dogowners who live in cities I’m sure it may be the saving grace – but living as I do I think I can spend my money on other things.

My arm is beginning to ache, so I’d better quit abusing it. And yes – it did remind me of a scaly lizard when the cast came off!

Where the Sun Don’t Shine

This is the north face of our local ski hill. The tower you can barely see holds the relay-stations for TV and radio.

It may be slightly exaggerated to say that the sun never touches this side of the mountain – but standing there this afternoon, it was a suitable illustration to what I was thinking at the time.

I spent the better part of my workday dealing with 3-4 school bullies and taking care of another young boy. It also involved me talking to all students in Grade 7 about my own experiences (from Junior High) as the one being bullied and why I act like a hawk when I see/hear or just suspect bullying among my students… In front of you who are reading this, I’ll make no secret about where I would want to ship these kids and sometimes it takes all of my restraint to act professionally when dealing with bullies.

Now I feel as if that Mac truck not only hit me – it also backed up to do the same thing once again.

There’s a bottle of Roodeberg chilling in the fridge, which I intend to uncork in a bit.

More on Snow

… that cancelled my trip.

After about 30 km of driving in white-out conditions and on a road slicker than loon-sh*t (people from the Yukon and NWT will know what I’m alluding to) I had an uncomfortably close encounter with a grader. There can’t have been anything more than centimeters between my driver’s door and the outer edge of the plow on that yellow behemoth – and that’s when I decided it was time to turn around. No meeting with the Migration Authorities can be worth the risk of having a serious accident. I consider myself to be a seasoned driver in winter conditions, I have studded tires and have practised on ice tracks to correct skids – but I’m not the only one on the roads.

I may take chances in a lot of other situations – but I’m not done enjoying nature around me and taking pictures of the things I see, so playing Roulette in traffic is not going to happen.

Can Someone Stop This Carousel?

It feels as if I’m constantly slipping further and further behind with everything… We’re into our 3rd or 4th week of systems trouble at work – logins fail, catalogues “go missing” or the terminal is just sitting there chewing. It’s been called systems failure, communications problems and even ” a glitch” – but the fact s of the matter is that everything takes at least twise as long to accomplish.  Problems like this is merely annoying when it comes to my teaching. I have any number of tried and tested lesson plans (naturally under my user name on the main frame…) which would be handy to just check over and then print. Now I’ve had to re-create some from memory – that is when I haven’t been able to access my catalogue!

Far worse is the effect all this has on my duties when working in administration. We’re in the middle of preparing financial statements for the last 8 months…

there are budget changes for the next three years that has to be entered…

I desperately need to read through whatever manuals there are for the various software programs I’m supposed to work with…

I take heart in the fact that I haven’t lost the ability to notice the fantastic show Nature is putting on every day this time of year!

Tomorrow I’m off on another trek towards the coast. This time with a teenager for his initial interview with the Migration people. Wish us luck!