What does an illegal migrant have to do to get deported from Sweden?

There is an old paradox/joke about the law of averages. If the likelihood of getting on a plane with a bomb on it is (say) one in one hundred million, and the likelihood of getting on a plane with two bombs on it is (say) one in 20 billion, then the safest way to travel is to carry a bomb.

Like many other newly ‘diverse’ societies, Sweden keeps supplying the world with paradox-jokes of its own. How about this one: 

Question: ‘What is the best way to stay safe in Sweden?’

Answer: ‘Burn down a synagogue.’

Unfortunately this joke is being tested on a nation, in real-time.

I refer to the case of the 22-year old Palestinian whose asylum case has recently been causing news in Scandinavia. The man – whose name has not been released – entered Sweden illegally in 2016. The Swedish Migration Agency considered his application for asylum that same year and decided that he had no grounds for asylum. A deportation order was even approved. But as in so many other European countries, there is nothing wrong with being an illegal immigrant in Sweden. The authorities rarely bother to do anything about illegal migrants – even when they are ruled not to have any right to remain. And this seems to be the situation not just because the haystack the Swedish authorities are dealing with is too big, but because the authorities don’t seem much interested in needles.

Some readers will remember the event that made this 22-year old famous. It happened in Gothenburg, Sweden, last December in the aftermath of President Trump’s announcement that the American embassy in Israel would finally be moving from Tel Aviv to the Israeli capital, Jerusalem. That announcement was actually a very small matter, but one which we were promised by the usual ‘media experts’ would have such profound implications for the Middle East.