"Of course, it's not right to send them back to a war situation. But I tell you, you give me one week and tell me I can do whatever I want to do? I send them all out. Every one of them."
Like most Iraqis who have come to Sweden, Naseir was attracted by the country's policy of allowing successful asylum applicants to bring their families there to join them.
He was refused, he said, because he had initially entered Europe in Greece, and was required by the Swedish authorities under international law to apply for asylum there -- a near-guarantee of refusal.
Before Sweden's new immigration law, the government might have had the discretion to grant him asylum anyway. Now it's left to the courts, which rule on the letter of the law.
"I could have gone to Germany, because my brother lives there, but I knew that even if I got there, I would not be able to get my family there," he said.
Those like Naseir who have been denied asylum but managed to avoid deportation are also being denied free medical care, except in emergencies.
In one recent case cited by the Red Cross, a 26-year-old undocumented woman was refused testing for vague symptoms of pain and fatigue. Eventually she turned to the Red Cross, which provided her with X-rays that diagnosed an advanced stage of breast cancer.
Besitun Hadi Ahmed, a 23-year-old Iraqi Kurd, recently lost the ability to walk because of a spinal problem. Doctors say his only hope is medical treatment and physical therapy not available in Iraq, yet he has recently lost his case for asylum and could be deported at any time.
His welfare benefits and work permit have been cut off.
"They just said: 'You have no future here. We can't give you anything,' " said Ahmed, who had hoped to qualify for Sweden's national wheelchair basketball team.
He hesitates to go to his physical therapy sessions.
"I don't know if I'm going to get arrested," he said.
"As soon as he sees a police car, he freezes up," said Annelie Olausson, a friend who recruited him to the basketball team.
"You start to wonder, what's wrong? What's happening in Sweden, that someone like him can't be protected here?"
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kim.murphy@latimes.com
