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The Sweden Democrats want to introduce “migration influencers” to encourage people with an immigrant background to return to their home countries.
That was suggested by Chris Dahlqvist, group leader for SD in Linköping, during a meeting with the city council on Tuesday.
– The idea is that they should be employed by the municipality’s communications department and work with social media, information campaigns and outreach, says Dahlqvist.
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On Tuesday, it was time for the municipal council to meet in Linköping. A long series of heated debates was expected, above all about the budget for 2024.
When it was time for the Sweden Democrats, who are the largest opposition party in the municipality, to enter the debate, group leader Chris Dahlqvist, 28, suggested, among other things, that ten million kroner more be spent on the municipality’s security work. It includes investments in cameras, security guards, information campaigns and “returning influencers”.
During the afternoon, he develops the latter for Aftonbladet.
– Linköping municipality currently has a far too large communications department. We think the costume is too big and therefore costs too much money. Then we want to establish a function that encourages voluntary return migration. We have chosen to call these “return migration influencers”, says Chris Dahlqvist.
He believes that the Sweden Democrats have already made a proposal about this in their budget for 2024, but that the concept is new.
– I had to google it myself and saw that no one had called it that before. I simply have to take it with me to my group and see how we can work further with it, says Dahlqvist.
Going to work at the municipality
He says that people who work as “remigration influencers” should be employed by the municipality and that it would not be difficult to come up with a form for this.
– They would work with social media, information campaigns in town and with outreach activities. Everyone should then be interested in returning to their home country. The reason we use this voluntary return migration is because the municipality has no other powers. We cannot force people to move, says Dahlqvist.
At the end of October, the government appointed an inquiry to find out how more people can be persuaded to return voluntarily. A proposal that is part of the Tidö Agreement. According to the government, it would apply to people who have not been integrated into Swedish society, through work, language or cultural factors. They would also offer cash support of SEK 40,000 per family for the trip.
And Dahlqvist hopes that the Sweden Democrats can put more pressure on the government nationally.
– After all, we are behind the helm of the government, so the hope is that we can see an increased deportation of criminal immigrants and of those who lack good character.