The Police Immigration Unit (Politiets utlendingsenhet – PU) expelled 447 people from Norway in July 2017. Over one third of these (163 people) had been previously prosecuted in Norway.
During the first seven months of the year, the police conducted 3,288 escorts to transports from the country. At the same time last year, the number was 4,602, representing a decline of 29% in 2017.
590 people, almost one in five of the detainees this year, are former asylum seekers who’d received a final asylum application rejection.
So far this year, 1,229 persons with a criminal record have been transported, which is 29 more than during the same period in 2016.
The PU has responsibility nationally for expulsion of persons without legal residence permits in Norway. The Directorate of Immigration (UDI) is responsible for ‘assisted return’, previously called ‘voluntary return’, which numbers are not mentioned in the police statistics.
Despite fewer asylum seekers entering Norway in the past six months, the police have the same targets for repatriations this year as last. The police are far from reaching the 2017 target of 9,000 cases (750 people per month).
‘Overall, it seems that won’t reach the target this year,’ PU chief, Morten Hojem Ervik, told TV 2 in July.
‘What we see now is connected to there being fewer illegal asylum seekers entering Norway. The result is fewer cases, so fewer to be repatriated’, said Ervik.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today