Via SvD (PDF):
Foreign Minister Bildt estimated that approximately 100,000 Iraqis live in Sweden and told Ambassador Crocker that if the United States accepted Iraqi asylees and refugees at the same pace, the US would have over 500,000 Iraqi residents. He explained that the majority were Kurds who fled the former regime,s persecution but stressed that since 2003, most Iraqis arriving in Sweden were Arabs.
He said that in 2007, the GOS [ed:Government of Sweden] expected 20,000 asylum petitions and would approve approximately 74 percent. The 26 percent not approved were the reason Iraqi immigration had become a Swedish domestic issue and that concluding a return agreement was critically important for the GOS. Bildt observed that without a mechanism for returning illegal aliens, the immigration problem would spiral out of control in a country of only nine million inhabitants.
Both the FM and Immigration Minister Tobias Billstrom said recent arrivals were more difficult to assimilate because they often arrive destitute (Billstrom estimated travel expenses alone exceed USD 20,000), poorly educated, and without professional or language skills. Bildt and Billstrom also mentioned several high profile honor killings as prompting more calls for stronger immigration policies from the Swedish public.
