All in a day's work, they say, but it was not exactly a routine occurrence for the immigration officials at Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport on Tuesday evening, when a family of five United States citizens asked for asylum in Finland.
The group arrived in Finland from another Schengen country. This is unlikely to improve their prospects of being granted asylum, owing to the terms of the Dublin Convention, which generally assumes that someone seeking asylum is required to apply in the member-state first entered.
The authorities are not at liberty to divulge the reasons given for the application for asylum, but at least according to current information it is not believed to have any connection with the war in Iraq.
It is quite exceptional for US nationals to seek asylum in Finland.
According to the statistics of the Directorate of Immigration (UVI), before Tuesday's events just one American citizen had filed an asylum application here during the current decade. The Directorate will now consider the latest application.
The story was first reported on the online portal of Ilta-Sanomat on Wednesday.
