For Ximena Ramos Salas, Sweden was always the country that welcomed her with open arms in 1986. She and her sister fled with their parents from the Chile of dictator Augusto Pinochet and settled in the quiet village of Tollarp. “Just a few days after our arrival, the neighbor children came knocking, we belonged right away,” the mother recalls. She experienced a warm, open country.
Her son Andres, however, knows only a different side of Sweden. He joined her eight years ago, but the feeling of belonging never came. Shortly after his 18th birthday, he received a one-sided form letter: He must leave Sweden. “About as personal as a demolition order for an industrial building,” says Andres.
The deportation is a consequence of the tightened migration and security policy that the governing coalition in Stockholm is implementing. It must heed the wishes of the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats – a political construct that primarily benefits one party. While the mother once arrived in a country that welcomed refugees, her son now experiences a Sweden that never wanted him.
Source: www.sueddeutsche.de
