Greta Thunberg is 23 years old. Six years have passed since her emotional address to the UN Climate Action Summit about the end of the world. She has since shifted her attention from climate activism to one fashionable left-wing cause after another, but her tone is as shrill as ever. The other day, she denounced Sweden’s migration policy as inhumane. Her conclusions, as usual, wrong. But she is at least right about one thing: Sweden has adopted an entirely new migration policy.
In Sweden, the system has until now often penalized the honest and rewarded the dishonest
For years, Sweden took more asylum seekers per capita than any other country in Europe. Now asylum numbers have fallen to their lowest level since 1985, even as pressure across the rest of the continent remains immense.
Last year, only 6,700 people applied for asylum in Sweden – a drop over 95 percent compared to 2015. This is no coincidence. Since taking office in 2022, the conservative government has pursued an active policy to bring this about.
We are living through a new age of migration. The world is more populous than ever, and more people now have the means to move across continents. In 1900, Europe had roughly 300 million inhabitants and Africa around 140 million. Today the EU has about 450 million people, while Africa has well over 1.5 billion. Surveys show that almost half of Africans aged 18 to 24 want to emigrate. In the Middle East, it is more than half. The most common motive is simple enough: a better life.
Few people move to Sweden for the weather. It is not the richest country in the world and the tax burden is high. Swedes are generally introverted and the culture is not easily accessible. The landscape may be beautiful, but it is hardly the deep forests and mushroom-picking that have attracted Africans and Arabs in their hundreds of thousands. Instead they are fleeing joblessness, bad governance and – simply – the prospect of a materially better life.
Had I been in my twenties and living in Senegal or Syria, I would probably have wanted to move to Europe too. For a young man, money is enough of a motivation. Once inside a European country, it is relatively easy for someone without much of a conscience to claim that he comes from a country that qualifies for refugee status. It is not much harder than it would be for me, as a Swede, to convince an Englishman that I am Norwegian.
That asylum seekers may lie when it suits them should surprise nobody. It is no more surprising than the welfare fraud and tax evasion seen in the wider population, in both Sweden and Britain. The more generous the system and the weaker the controls, the more abuse there will be.
In Sweden, the system has until now often penalized the honest and rewarded the dishonest. Even after a claim had been rejected, many have remained by appealing, exploiting delays and otherwise spinning the process out. In effect, “no, please leave” was a rule only for the compliant.
Today, 20 percent of Sweden’s population is foreign-born. Immigration from North Africa and the Middle East has had catastrophic consequences: serious organized crime, gang violence, widespread sexual offending, Islamism and terror threats, honor-based oppression and unemployment.
The current conservative government was elected on a promise to stop immigration – and it has succeeded to a remarkable degree. The Swedish government has established special return centers, where rejected asylum seekers are to live until they leave Sweden, in most cases no later than four weeks after the expulsion decision takes effect. Any new asylum or work permit application can no longer be made from within Sweden, but must instead be made from the country of origin.
Those who do not leave voluntarily are more often deported. Those who go into hiding are more often found by the police, who have been instructed to prioritize checks and the enforcement of deportation orders.
Tougher citizenship requirements, stricter benefit conditions, and other tougher rules mean that fortune-seekers now choose not to move to Sweden. At the same time, Sweden has made it easier for high-skilled migration that actually benefits the country.
Unfortunately, falsehoods are now being spread about what the new Swedish policy actually entails, and in this Greta seems to be doing her utmost to blacken the reputation of her own country. No one is deported where grounds for protection exist. Those entitled to asylum are granted it. The process is legally sound, with the right to have one’s case heard by the courts. Fortunately, Greta no longer seems to have the influence she once did as a child-prophet.
Sweden has nevertheless shown that migration can be brought down. For a British government with the same ambition, this should be possible as well. After all, it may have been a sunny holiday weekend, but people are not generally crossing the Channel for the British weather either.
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