Nearly 7,000 asylum seekers from last year not fully registered

not fully registeredImmigration and Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug.Photo: Berit Roald / NTB scanpix

Low capacity in the police has led to that 6,780 asylum seekers who arrived in Norway last year are still not fully registered, writes the newspaper Dagbladet.

Police Immigration Service (PU) are hoping to complete last year’s asylum seekers registration by July. But the arrears are falling rapidly. At the beginning of 2016  around 14,000 people were awaiting full registration. A full registration means that the police interviews each applicant.

PU’s task is to register and identify asylum seekers coming to Norway, before they are sent out to Norwegian reception centres. PU looks at who the asylum seekers are, where they come from and what their plans in Norway are. They also look at crime prevention, public safety and identity clarification.

In September last year the demand was so great that the PU had to settle for taking pictures and fingerprints, and check whether the applicant already had asylum in Europe or had been registered in another country.

The consequence has been that the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) hasn’t had  everything they need for the further consideration of each case. The Immigration Directorate now helps PU with the registration of asylum seekers.

From January 1 to mid-April this year, there have been barely 1,100 asylum seekers coming to Norway, the UDI figures show. The last three weeks has seen on average eight to nine people daily. This is the lowest level since 1993.

Source: NTB scanpix / Noeway Today