Drop in undocumented immigrants in Finland

finland lake bigFinnish authorities have reported a year-on-year decrease in the number of undocumented immigrants. A report released by the European Migration Network (EMN) revealed that Finland’s immigration system caught more than 3,300 undocumented aliens in the country last year. The figure marks a drop of nearly 12 percent from the year before, when the figure stood at 3,755, and a much larger decrease from 2009, when authorities recorded 6,660 undocumented individuals.

Persons are defined as ‘undocumented’ if they are nationals of a third country who have overstayed their residence permit, or if they have arrived in the EU via human traffickers or criminal organisations.

The numbers fall in line with declining illegal immigration seen across the EU as a whole over the last two years. Across the EU, there were more than 470,000 undocumented aliens caught in 2011, with the highest number, nearly 89,000, being in Greece.

Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Denmark reported only 400, whilst more than 20,700 were caught in Sweden last year.