Debate on treatment of refugees intensifies

Debate has been intensive in Finland about the tougher refugee policies enacted in 2016 and the increased number of rejections by the immigration authority on asylum applications.

This week the immigration authority, Migri confirmed that the proportion of faulty rejections had increased four fold. Migri representatives attributed the wrongdoings to the inexperience of newly recruited officers, but a leading immigration lawyer saw political pressure behind the faulty decisions.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä urged the Finns to trust that the civil servants make right decisions. He assured that Finland would give a safe haven to "all those who meet the criteria of being a refugee". However, Sipilä added that not all who arrived in Finland in the major wave in 2015 were honest.

Earlier on Saturday, former president Tarja Halonen demanded that forced repatriations be suspended. There have been demonstrations in recent weeks at the Helsinki airport against police-assisted flights chartered to return the dismissed asylum seekers to their home countries.

Tirsa Forsell, section chief at the Asylum Unit of Migri, said on national broadcaster Yle that the decline in the quality of the decisions was understandable as the agency had hired some 400 new staff members within half a year in 2016 and they had to be fully trained.

"Decision making could not be halted while the new people were still being instructed about the immigration legislation", Forsell said.

Meanwhile, immigration lawyer Ville Punto claimed to Yle that the documents he had seen indicated pressure had been applied towards the direction of making negative decisions.

Punto gave as an example an application of a person from Iraq. Migri accepted and acknowledged his narration that he had been kidnapped and ransom had been demanded, but concluded it had "not been directed against the applicant as a person but against his family's business".

Punto does not accept the unfinished training as the reason. "It is clearly apparent that negative decisions were expected and had to be taken". Punto said some kind of "guidance had been given".

Tirsa Forsell said it is "difficult to comment on whether political pressure has existed". But she said legislation was toughened recently and civil servants applied the changed laws.

Former president Halonen on Saturday criticized the way the Finnish refugee legislation was changed soon after the influx of asylum seekers. "That was not a good judicial decision, if the intention is to respect human rights", she said.

Statements by leading politicians have indicated disagreement between the coalition parties.

In the past week, Paula Risikko, the conservative minister for the interior, suggested Finland should increase its official refugee quota, now 750 per year. The idea was instantly dismissed by the coalition partner Finns' Party.

There are currently 8,000 negative asylum cases waiting for a court decision. They should be processed within a year.

Dismissed asylum seekers have the right to subject the decision by Migri to a court. If the decision is faulty, the court returns the matter to Migri for reviewing. In 2015 only one percent of rejected decisions were found faulty, but recently the figure has gone up to four percent.