patrick.net

I’m not buying tickets yet, but maybe Sweden is onto something. The Deep Dive ran a story late last week headlined, “Sweden Introduces New ‘Remigration Check’ Policy, Raising Concerns Over Forced Migrant Exits.”

The Swedish government announced a new “financial incentive” to encourage migrants to return to their countries of origin. In other words, a bribe. Known as the “remigration check,” the new policy offers migrants up to $35,000 per person to voluntarily get lost, beat it back home, and make themselves scarce.

The article pointed out that a migrant family of four would get $140,000, enough to afford a home or land in most parts of Africa and the Middle East. To put down roots. Supporters pointed out it’s a good deal all around, since Sweden is already spending much more than that on inefficient welfare for the migrants.

You would think a policy like this would be a liberal’s wildest dream. It transfers more wealth from the first world to the third world. It sets up migrants to succeed in their own countries and helps them escape poverty. It’s a giant handout.

But no; Swedish leftists hate the idea. Because it’s mean.

Practical problems quickly suggest themselves. For a plan like this to work, a country must first close its borders, or else migrants will be encouraged to come, turn around, and claim their severance packages, a sort of money-grabbing lazy-Susan. But if handled right, if the borders were closed, it might work.

The Swedish government announced a new “financial incentive” to encourage migrants to return to their countries of origin. In other words, a bribe. Known as the “remigration check,” the new policy offers migrants up to $35,000 per person to voluntarily get lost, beat it back home, and make themselves scarce.

the new policy offers migrants up to $35,000 per person to voluntarily get lost, beat it back home, and make themselves scarce.

Patrick says

The Swedish government announced a new “financial incentive” to encourage migrants to return to their countries of origin. In other words, a bribe. Known as the “remigration check,” the new policy offers migrants up to $35,000 per person to voluntarily get lost, beat it back home, and make themselves scarce.

Time for PatNetters to organize a group tour to Sweden!

We go, we arrive, we claim to be migrants and won't leave w/o our $35k checks.

You may be familiar with the term "Stockholm syndrome," in which someone becomes attached to their captor or kidnapper, effectively becoming brainwashed into aligning themselves with someone trying to harm them.

So you know it's a big deal when Sweden — which pretty much owns the naming rights to Stockholm syndrome! — is doing this:

Faced with increasing crime and economic pressures from its migrant crisis, Sweden plans to significantly increase financial incentives for migrants to leave the country. Beginning in 2026, Migration Minister Johan Forssell says Sweden will offer $34,000 to migrants willing to return to their nation of origin.

And this isn't just a one-off thing. The Swedish government already tried this last year and decided to kick its efforts into overdrive:

Presently, the Swedish government's program offers $976 per adult and $488 per child, with a cap of $3,903 per family. This program saw minimal uptake in 2023, with just one participant. The proposed increase aims to make the offer more attractive, especially for the several hundred thousand migrants in Sweden who are unemployed or reliant on state benefits, according to Sweden Democrats (SD) spokesman Ludvig Aspling.

You do have to imagine that even the lure of $34,000 won't be enough to deter many migrants from those sweet, sweet Swedish "state benefits."

Methinks most of them will decline to go back to Afghanistan and Syria!

The country "received over 250,000 asylum seekers since mid-2023," so you can imagine how acutely desperate they're getting.

Color me skeptical that the Swedish government has enough money to fix this problem.
There's only one way out of this mess, and it doesn't involve "tolerance and inclusion."