To Örebro University

Today, Europe stands in one of the most difficult refugee crisis of modern times, the increased mass influx of refugees has resulted in an increasing number of individuals seeking residency in Sweden when they were forced to flee from persecution and conflicts. This places high demands on the employees at the migration agency, to deal with an increased number of protection queries and application process raised by asylum seekers who want to take up permanent residence in Sweden or to seek protection from persecution. Additionally, it may be difficult for asylum officers to handle such pressure, and make an in-depth timely assessment pursuant to Swedish immigration law. Moreover, these bureaucrats find themselves in a difficult situation were their own wills and predilection isn’t always consistent with the conditions they have to serve in their profession, particularly, when the decisions have great impact on the subjected individual's life.

The purpose of this essay is therefore to examine and analyze how five asylum officers at the Swedish Migration agency relate to the bureaucrats dilemma in their profession, with its starting point in the ethical principles. We have chosen to focus on administrative ethics, which mainly concerns bureaucrats in the public sector. The main question of this essay is how does the asylum officers at the Swedish Migration agency handle the ethical considerations which consist of bureaucrats dilemma? The result shows that the asylum officials at the Swedish Migration Agency have difficulties to cater for regard to community members while being loyal to superiors and comply with the law. Compassion for asylum seekers can be considered as a goal for asylum officers during their work, but judgmental emotions are not advisable while taking the decision, as laws and regulations comes first. This is also necessary to ensure legal certainty for all individuals.