A few years back I dug a bit into the Dutch numbers on African illegal immigrants - but I found there isn't anything solid on non-asylum immigrants in regard to official figures, just estimates based on the numbers of police arrests, when police by coincidence discover someone has no legal status. It is not actively measured by policy, rarely researched and exceedingly difficult. Other means to attempt tallying the size of this group can be thought of (e.g. hospitalization), but these too would also form a proxy at best.

But what else is to be expected with a harsh government policy that actively pursues sending illegal immigrants straight across the borders and is blind for the very possible bureaucratic nightmare when people get stuck between nations and become de facto stateless? The upshot is that non-asylum immigrants (or those that applied and were not recognized) in the Netherlands actively avoid the means of government bookkeepings and drop out of the system and into darker circuits, with all the consequences that entails. Yet even stuck in these conditions, the people I interviewed confessed they were happier here than back home.

In Sweden, a closely patrolled pro-immigration "consensus" has sustained extraordinarily liberal policies while placing a virtual taboo on questions about the social and economic costs. In Norway, a strong tradition of free speech and efficient administration has produced a hard-nosed approach about which refugees, and how many, to take in.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry has calculated that because of all the social, health, housing and welfare benefits mandated by the state, supporting a single refugee in Norway costs $125,000 -- enough to support some 26 Syrians in Jordan. And the Norwegian press has reported that following an alleged terrorist threat from abroad in July, Norway's immigration authorities deported asylum seekers who raised security concerns.

Unlike the far-right Sweden Democrats, which have been shunned by other Swedish parties, Norway's own anti-immigration party, the populist Progress Party, has entered a coalition government and makes its concerns heard. Solveig Horne, the minister of children, equality and social inclusion, and a member of the Progress Party, complains that Norway already has more asylum seekers than it can accommodate. "More and more are allowed to stay in Norway," she told me in Oslo last month. "But many communities are saying, `Wait. We have to be sure we can integrate the people we already have.' "

This is just the kind of blunt talk that is strictly avoided in Sweden. Take the comments of the incumbent prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, a few weeks before last Sunday's election. He asked voters to "open their hearts" to Syrian refugees, even though the escalating cost of supporting them would preclude further welfare benefits for Swedes. The comment caused an outcry -- not because it seemed to favor refugees over Swedes, but simply for suggesting that refugee policy needed to be considered on economic grounds.