Remigration is the Refugee Convention’s main principle. “The two principal concepts in refugee law are asylum and repatriation – the latter meaning return to one’s own country. After the Second World War, large populations returned to the countries they had been forced to leave,” former human rights judge Hanne Sophie Greve wrote in Aftenposten in 2016. Ten years later, the desire for remigration is being branded extremist.
“Refugee law is an instrument for emergency situations. It is therefore extremely important that the refugee concept and refugee status are not curtailed or redefined. This applies particularly in the situation in which the world now finds itself, with around 60 million refugees in total,” Hanne Sophie Greve wrote in an opinion article in Aftenposten in 2016. There, she placed particular emphasis on repatriation. The idea that refugees should return home.
Asylum Is a Temporary Emergency Solution
“A refugee is entitled to asylum. This is, however, by definition a temporary or time-limited stay outside one’s own state. One is entitled to asylum for as long as one continues to have a well-founded fear of unjust persecution, or if it could be life-threatening to be returned to one’s own country,” Greve wrote. And further:
“One may, not entirely accurately but nevertheless with a degree of relevance, compare asylum to a hospital stay – emergency assistance according to need. The two principal concepts in refugee law are therefore asylum and repatriation, the latter meaning return to one’s own country.”
Europeans Returned Home After the War
Greve pointed out that Europeans returned home after the Second World War, including Norwegian refugees. They came home from countries such as Sweden and Great Britain. Presumably, none had travelled all the way to Somalia or Pakistan in search of fortune on a completely different continent.
Remigration Is Intended to Be the Primary Solution
“Repatriation is the primary solution for the world’s refugees,” writes Hanne Sophie Greve:
“Because most major refugee crises in modern times have unfolded outside Europe and the Western world, in addition to the asylum arrangement to which a refugee is entitled, and repatriation which a host asylum country may implement when it is safe, a system of resettlement in third countries has developed. Resettlement entails permanent residence in a new country. No refugee is entitled to resettlement.”
Refugees should not be able to choose for themselves which country they may receive asylum in, nor demand permanent residence in any country. “The refugees in the large refugee flows to Europe in recent years are correct when they claim that they are entitled to asylum – that is, a purely temporary arrangement pending a situation where ‘the danger has passed’. However, they are mistaken if they believe that this opens the door to resettlement outside their own country.”
The Host Asylum Country Should Not Be Demographically Altered
Greve writes and points out that refugees in this respect have no legal right to pick and choose countries, nor to permanent residence. She further argues that it is natural to change the practice of granting permanent residence when large flows of asylum seekers arrive.
“There must be sufficient resources to ensure the right to asylum as emergency assistance. The point is that every country has been able to accede to, and has been encouraged to accede to, the Refugee Convention without thereby having to fear that the country might suddenly become more or less demographically altered,” Greve wrote in 2016. Since then, not only Norway but most of Western Europe has become demographically altered.
Few, if any, have returned home. Except perhaps to holiday in the country from which they received asylum, possibly in houses built with funds from Norway.
A report from Statistics Norway (SSB) showed that 24% of Somalis, 71% of Iraqis and 55% of Iranians admitted that they had visited the country from which they had sought asylum, wrote Aftenposten in 2018.
Repatriation and Remigration
There is a certain difference between remigration and repatriation.
Repatriation means sending prisoners of war, deportees, refugees or similar persons back to their homeland, according to Store norske leksikon.
According to Wikipedia, repatriation is stricter than remigration:
“Repatriation differs from remigration in that repatriation does not need to be voluntary, and from deportation in that it is not an expulsion.”
It was precisely remigration that took place after the Second World War. Europeans generally returned home voluntarily once the war was over, because these were not fortune-seekers but genuine refugees. They had primarily sought safety in the nearest safe area. They had not travelled through a series of safe countries in order to reach the place where they could receive the most free benefits, as appears to be the case to a large extent with today’s refugees. Most of whom must be described as migrants, since they did not seek asylum in the nearest safe area but travelled onwards. And onwards. And they are granted asylum even though this does not follow the international rule that asylum should be sought in the first safe area.
Norway Does Not Follow the Rule of the First Country of Asylum
The principle that asylum should be sought in the first country of asylum is also enshrined in Norwegian law. More specifically, Section 32 of the Immigration Act, which states that asylum may be refused when the applicant:
“has travelled to the realm after having stayed in a state or an area where the foreign national was not persecuted.”
Several countries have state programmes for repatriation. Denmark has, since 2009, operated a scheme providing support for the voluntary repatriation of foreign nationals and Danish citizens with dual citizenship who wish to return to their original homeland.
We Pay for Remigration
Norway has a scheme for the repatriation of foreign nationals who hold residence permits on humanitarian grounds or belong to a group with collective protection but who wish to return. The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration then pays for the airline ticket and NOK 15,000 in re-establishment support, which must be repaid if the person moves back to Norway. For some reason, Syrians were excluded from this opportunity to have their return home financed. Somalis, Afghans, Iraqis and Moroccans receive even greater support. Norwegian taxpayers may help these individuals obtain housing, education and employment in their home countries, UDI informs on its website.
“Send Them Home,” the European Parliament Shouted
After a period in which those who raised remigration as a topic were branded racists and Nazis, even the majority in the European Parliament has now advocated remigration for certain groups: “Send them home”. And for asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected to be sent to detention centres in countries outside the Union.
In recent years, Norway and other countries have become increasingly bound by conventions, with requirements imposed above all by the UN and the EU. But conventions can surely be repealed, and reason, national self-determination and principles that proved effective can surely once again be allowed to prevail?
EU-parlamentet godkjenner internering av asylsøkere utenfor unionen
Greve Is an Award-Winning Asylum Expert
Hanne Sophie Greve served as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from 1998 to 2004 and was a Court of Appeal judge at Gulating Court of Appeal until May 2022. She holds a doctoral degree in law from the University of Bergen with a dissertation on Cambodian refugees. Greve has distinguished herself particularly through her work on human rights issues, especially in conflict situations and in key positions within international law courts, and has received numerous awards for her human rights work, including the Freedom of Expression Foundation Prize (Fritt Ords Pris). She was also made a Knight First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav, to mention only some of the distinctions listed in Wikipedia.