What happened
Migrationsverket's regional director south defends the authority's reception and return centres in an opinion piece in Sydsvenskan. The text is a response to a report from Institutet för mänskliga rättigheter that directs sharp criticism at conditions at the centres. The regional director highlights that the authority is implementing measures for increased security on behalf of the government, including through more staff and security guard presence. The author of the article also points out that the institute only interviewed 14 people, while approximately 2 360 people live at the centres, and emphasizes that parents themselves bear the responsibility of care for their children.
Our analysis
Migrationsverket does its best to describe state custody as social care. When human rights experts sound the alarm about insecurity, the authority responds by increasing the number of security guards and dismissing the criticism as isolated voices. That 14 people testify to serious shortcomings is not seen as a warning sign, but as a statistical exception among the over two thousand who are forced to live there.
The strategy behind the return centres has never been about safety for new Swedes. The government's purpose is to make everyday life so uncertain and isolated that asylum seekers themselves give up. When the state creates large-scale camps and then demands that parents in crisis bear the entire responsibility for their children's health, those in power are trying to wash their hands of the institutions they themselves have built.
It is not a lack of staff meetings or craft activities that creates the crisis at the centres. It is the core idea itself: locking people in while awaiting deportation and calling the surveillance care.
Explained
A return centre is a state accommodation where people with deportation orders are to live while awaiting departure from Sverige.