People who pretend to be Ukrainians without being so have applied for asylum in Norway. This is stated by Minister of Justice Emilie Enger Mehl (Sp) in a response to the Storting.
– It is alarming, but not surprising, says Erlend Wiborg (Frp) to Dagbladet. He is the party’s immigration and integration policy spokesman.
According to Minister of Justice Mehl, the police have “uncovered a few cases where the applicant has either acknowledged that the person in question has pretended to be Ukrainian without being so, or where it is suspected that this has happened”.
There are also “cases revealed by third-country nationals who claim that they were living in Ukraine when the war broke out, but where there are strong indications that this is not the case”, writes Mehl.
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– Naive
The answer came after a question from Wiborg about people “trying to sneak into Norway under the guise of being Ukrainian refugees, without actually being”. Wiborg believes it is worrying that it now turns out that this has happened.
This means that the warnings that PST has previously issued are correct. Terrorists and others are exploiting the influx of refugees, claims Wiborg, who heads the Storting’s Labor and Social Affairs Committee.
– I think the government is incredibly naive, when you know that IS and others are trying to sneak people into Europe to commit terrorist acts. We will to a very high degree help Ukrainians, but we must make sure that it is real Ukrainians, and not others who use the situation to sneak into Norway.
– Offices destroyed
Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl (Sp), on the other hand, denies that the government is naive:
– Wiborg should be happy with the measures the government has taken through the refugee crisis to have control over who comes to Norwaysays Mehl to Dagbladet.
She believes that it is precisely the measures that have led to the discovery of people who have tried to sneak in as refugees.
“Ever since the outbreak of the war, the government has been clear that a refugee crisis of the dimension seen in Europe brings with it a risk for both the exploitation of vulnerable people as refugees, but also for people to come to Norway covered by the influx of refugees,” says Mehl. .
REFUSES: Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl rejects that the government is naive. Photo: NTB
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Want border control
They disagree on what measures are needed. Earlier, the FRP proposed spending NOK 5 billion to send employees of the Police Immigration Unit (PU) and the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) to the borders of Ukraine’s neighboring countries, to check the refugees’ identities there. The money, which was also to go to help Poland and Moldova with the refugee situation, the party wanted to take from the aid budget.
FRP also believes that there should be control of the refugees’ identity at the Norwegian border, and promoted at the end of March a representative proposal on temporary border control. Only the FRP voted in favor when it was voted on in the Storting last Friday. Wiborg thinks this is naive.
– You can not be as naive as the government is now. The government said no to border controls, saying it was too difficult to implement. But Norway has initially had border controls during the pandemic, and border controls were introduced during the refugee crisis in 2015, says Wiborg.
Tymoshenko warns of imperial plans
– We want control at the border immediately, that they check identification papers before they are released into society.
– Not all Ukrainian refugees have passports?
– The vast majority of Ukrainians have passports or other identification documents. But you must have arrangements for Ukrainians who do not have passports, so they are not sent to the door, says Wiborg.
– The challenge is that now almost anyone can say that they are Ukrainians and then they go freely in society without finding out who the person is, Wiborg says.
Strengthened control
Minister of Justice Mehl, for his part, tells Dagbladet that the government has implemented a number of measures to uncover criminals who want to exploit the flow of refugees:
Among other things, we have strengthened PST by one hundred million to uncover a possible intelligence threat. During the refugee crisis, the police’s immigration unit has been given 433 positions to handle the refugees, and this has been precisely because the government believes it is important that we get all the refugees registered. We have introduced enhanced control over who is in Norway, so-called territorial control. On February 28, a few days after the outbreak of the war, the government announced the establishment of an intelligence and situation monitoring unit. It is a collaboration between PST and the police to improve the situation over domestic threats.
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– Why do you not want border control?
– If we were to introduce border control as Wiborg proposes, we probably would not be able to simultaneously take the other important measures to register refugees and have control over who is in Norway, because what he proposes is extremely resource-intensive, says Mehl.
She believes it was easier to introduce border control during the pandemic, because there was less activity in society then.
– In this situation, it has been the opposite. It has been important for the government to have strengthened surveillance at the borders, but also in the rest of Norway. Territorial control means that you can stop a person and control identity, even outside the border, says Mehl.
One hundred days of war
She says that it can be just as important to focus on people who want to go to Norway to conduct intelligence.
– All the measures in the police and PST and elsewhere in society, are there to minimize the risk and uncover people who may be a threat to Norway. The threat assessment from our security services came on February 11, before the war. Even then, Russia was a well-known threat to Norway, especially in intelligence and the use of non-economic instruments to gain influence in Norway, says Mehl.
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