The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* announced Thursday that immigration costs Finland at least 700 million euros a year, according to YLE in English, which cites PS thinktank Suomen Perusta. Basing his conclusions on the report, PS third vice president Juho Eerola said he would consider restricting migration to the country based on national origin.
The report suggested that Germans are the most favorable immigrants since they netted Finland an average of 5,000 euros annually with the most costly being the Somalians at 8,000 euros annually.
The conclusions of the report are questionable and have been received with skepticism and tweezers by Migrant Tales.
An OECD report in 2013 revealed that in Finland migration had boosted growth in 2011 by 0.16%, including pensions.
The findings of Suomen Perusta differ radically from what PS’ Matti Putkonen claimed in October without any proof to the media that “the cost of migration” to Finland may be as high as 2 billion euros, according to tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.
Eerola, who admitted a few years ago being attracted to fascism and Benito Mussolini’s fascism, said that he was ready to ditch international agreements on asylum in order to restrict refugees from certain regions like Africa and the Middle East.
The Suomen Perusta report is the latest example of the hostility of the PS against non-white migrants in this country. It’s anti-immigration rhetoric has become so thick recently that it may backfire and exclude them from government talks.
Similar schemes like the one suggested by Eerola were used in the United States with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited Chinese workers from entering the country. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 abolished the national origins quota system that had structured US immigration policy since 1924. The new system was based on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or residents in the country.
The Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas for specific countries and gave preference to Northern and Western European immigrants over Eastern Europeans, Asians, South Americans and Africans. Why? Obviously to keep non-whites from moving to the United States and thus maintain perceived “white racial purity.”
With the PS suggesting a similar act like the one in the United State in 1924 but more draconian since it would restrict all refugees from regions like the Middle East and Africa, Eerola and the PS reveal who they are when it comes to racism.
Sorry Eerola and the PS but it all has to do with skills, not ethnic background. Disagree? Why did the United States do away with the Immigration Act of 1924? Because they understood half a century ago that it was a mistake.
Read full story here.
So how should we read this latest statement by Eerola and the PS?
The party is desperate and fears they will not come in second or third place in the April 19 elections. This would mean another four years in the opposition and subsequently a death blow to the party.
There only chance then is bashing migrants and inciting nationalist fervor in order to attract votes.
* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.
This did not surprise me at all if you think of what the most PS members and their followers ideology is. Most of them would favor white ethnic instead of brown ethnic people and that has come to us clear in the beginning. So im not surprised at all, this is what was expected to happen wich is keep Finland white!
Right, D4R! Imagine the PS implementing a more draconian immigration policy than the United States in 1924! Apart from having issues with racism, a lot of PS members and politicians don’t have a clue not only about immigration but other important issues like climate change, business etc. The only thing that unites is their intolerance and ignorance.
D4R, I think that PS members/supporters/immigration critics are wiser than you think. In my opinion, the economic questions and Islam have been always the main issues instead of ethnicity for most of us. Even Juho Eerola, who suggested this restriction, is a father of a mixed race child as the mother of that child is (half?) black.
And we immigration critics have long said that Kenyans in Finland, with unemployment rates lower than native Finns, are example of a good kind of immigration. If So ma lis manage to do the same and leave conservative religion behind, we will say the same thing about So ma lis.
And even moderate Islam doesn’t stop us praising for example Tatars in Finland. When United Arab Emirates published a list of terrorist organizations around the world, one of the organizations on the list seemed to be the Tartar congregation in Finland. We on Hommaforum were immediately skeptical about this as Tartar aren’t known to be troublemakers and defended them against these allegations by saying that is almost certainly some kind of error that their organization is on that list.
And late professor Tatu Vanhanen, whom some accused of being a racist because he had the courage to study the average IQ in different nations, advocated marriages between races as a way to battle racism. I think his suggestion was interesting point of view.