I remember that a decade ago people would try to gaslight you into thinking that there were no problems with migrants in Sweden.
"Our crime statistics are high because we changed how we count crimes!"
You would hear phrases like that. It was actually bizarre looking from the outside in how much denial there was about these problems. Maybe if it has started being addressed back then then it wouldn't have gotten as bad.
Sweden had a pretty weird situation 10-15 years ago. The two parties that were traditionally resisting too much immigration turned around (M and S). Probably because, like all European countries, Sweden needs immigrants to keep the demography sane.
Meanwhile a political party with a neo-nazi history caught the spotlight (SD), which made it even more difficult to criticize immigration.
It was like a perfect storm, making immigration a very difficult subject to have a moderate opinion about.
And the no-go zones were just fox news right-wing propaganda. Well, my Swedish friend drove me through one (daytime) two years ago.
Pretty significant cultural changes, like now in their hometown, there are separate swimming days for the sexes at the public pool. When I started going to Sweden 30 years ago, all the beaches were top-ional.
Things like, I think he called them the "bearded babies", which was a group of thousands of refugees who were obviously up to 30 years old, claiming they were 17, so they didn't need to provide any information and received preferential treatment.
It was enough to lead my die-hard liberal punk rock guitarist friend to start voting SD in last few elections. They were the only ones who would talk about the problems.
> commented Oliver, although the segment wasn’t even focused on immigrants and Sweden, a country whose crime rate has steadily declined since 2005
> Selin completed a study recently focusing on negative news reports about Sweden’s acceptance of refugees. It found numerous exaggerations and distortions, including false reports that Sharia law was predominant in parts of the country and that some immigrant-heavy neighborhoods were considered ‘no-go zones’ by the police.
That's because it's comprised of everything else, like shoplifting kids and gangs of bicycle-stealing thieves in student towns like Uppsala.
"Oh yippee, we had six hundred fewer cases of shoplifting and two hundred fewer cases of bicycle theft, and only two hundred more cases of deadly gun violence and one hundred more cases of deadly use of explosives -- minus eight hundred, plus three hundred, a net reduction of five hundred cases of crime!"
The only real numbers the article gives are
> About 62,000 people are linked to criminal networks in the country, police say.
which says... nothing? What does "linked to" mean? are those people that buy illicit drugs off the street? are they "linked to" a criminal organization?
> Last year, 363 recorded shootings led to 53 deaths across Sweden, according to police.
Absolute numbers, without per capita context (given above) this is not useful.
> In 2022, the gun murder rate in Stockholm was roughly 25 times higher than in London.
This is _gun_ murders specifically, but for all murders, London is comparable to Sweden overall (~1.3 per 100k population), I wasn't able to find numbers for Stockholm specifically, but yeah, if I die I die, I'm not sure I would particularly care whether it was due to a knife or a gun.
Overall, seems like another overblown narrative that doesn't reflect reality to me. Violent crime just doesn't seem to be trending upward in Sweden.
Curious if others have information that counters what I've found.
As much as you're right, posting facts about negative aspects of immigration will get you in trouble or you'll get branded names and down voted at best.
Yes and that it happens on cesspool platforms like reddit I can live with. However this is the new norm on HN of all places and it's really concerning. You'll get flagged even for mentioning that coordinated flagging exists on HN.
I vouched for your comment because it's benign and states an objective fact. My posts are being flagged by a group of users who dislike that. Users who flagged your post should be banned from flagging.
You can apply for the grant if you have a temporary or permanent residence permit in Sweden
* as a refugee
* as a quota refugee
* as a person eligible for subsidiary protection
* on the grounds of exceptionally distressing circumstances
* or because of your connection to a person who has one of the residence permits listed above.
Given the profound lack of higher order thinking that led to Europe's experiment along these lines over the last decade or so I wouldn't be so sure if they have.
The article addresses this. In Sweden in particular, a lot of the migrants are from countries in unrest. Last year's reward was $1k and exactly 1 person took it. The article said 'experts don't expect there to be a substantial increase in claiming the offer' with the increase to $35k which is surprising to me, but I suppose still makes sense as $35k won't make Damascus any safer.
I agree, but they were good enough scapegoats to trigger Brexit so who can predict how things will go? (Though in classic Brexit irony two of those groups were encouraged to vote for Brexit to make immigration from their country easier).
Well Indians and Chinese need all kinds of visas and permits.
Probably not a thing in Sweden but in Italy there were a few scandals recently about illegal/semi legal Indian and other migrants working in sweatshops and farms.
Poles on the other hand have the legal right to come and work in Sweden with no legal restrictions whatsoever.
They'll have forfeited the right to refugee status anywhere else and would have to migrate as an economic migrant. Which generally takes either six figures or decades, AFAICT.
Right. They throw away their documents, so EU countries have to document and fingerprint them again and also keep a database, preferably a shared one. Otherwise they just conveniently move from one country to another as there are close to no border checks in the Schengen area. Probably why Germany has reintroduced "temporary" border checks after the Solingen stabbing attack. Sweeden still has checks in place at the bridge to Denmark.
My acquaintance managed to sneak in multiple times, “losing” their passport if caught, then pretending not to understand fingerprinting instructions and smudging them on purpose until the police gave up. With face biometrics probably won’t work today. Just saying that a stamp in a passport is necessary a full proof solution.
Per the article this is from the party that "began as a neo-Nazi movement in the 1980s but rebranded itself as a conservative party, with curbing migration at the center of it platform."
I would imagine it's ideological demagoguery and not concerned with serious critical analysis of long term effects.
These are two separate things: (1) the party being right-wing, (2) the immigration or more precisely the lack of integration causing problems for the Swedish society.
The previous left-wing government that basically said "we're taking everybody" had good intentions but extremely poor execution. Merkel's Germany didn't do much better tbh.
In any case, when migrants don't integrate, and you fail to make them do so, you can either ignore the problem hoping it goes away or try to solve it in a way that is human and causes as little suffering as possible.
> from the party that "began as a neo-Nazi movement in the 1980s
Good find. By the same token though, the Democratic Party in US was the white supremacist party in the 19th century. There is probably ideological demagoguery involved with them as well.
Ah, good point. And even below I pointed out we can see a connection down to the the current president. Though, with a public repentance, for whatever that's worth from a politician.
The difference is how long time has passed. The current party leader joined the youth movement in 1994, when the party was still full of Neo-Nazi ideology.
In the 1940s. Mentioning this, but the fact he would publicly denounce the Klan by the end of the decade, and spend the rest of his life profusely apologizing for having been so stupid as a younger person -- is just smear, basically.
Byrd later called joining the KKK "the greatest mistake I ever made". In his last autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a KKK member because he "was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision — a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions".[37] Byrd also said in 2005, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened".
Not very, because Vance isn't very old. When was he in the KKK? It would be very unusual to be in the KKK in, say, 1995. Someone would have to be extremely committed to white supremacist ideology to be in such a position, I would think.
In 2018 a report made by the Expert Group for Studies in Public Economics (ESO), which has studied the employment level of refugees between 1983 and 2015. The study shows, among other things, that the integration of refugees gradually deteriorated during the period, and that an average refugee represents a cost of SEK 74,000 per year for public finances.
There is considerable uncertainty in the calculations, but they indicate that the net redistribution via public finances to an average refugee over his or her entire lifetime in Sweden amounts to an average of SEK 74 000 per year.
This is what I would expect. They're a massive drain on the taxpayer and even if they work - which is mostly not the case in Germany - it's in small jobs that cost the taxpayer more in subsidies than they provide. Immigration in most cases is a net negative. And I'm not even talking about the other factors, such as crimes like rapes, terrorism, etc., a drain on resources such as doctors and public administration, ...
Japan had a similar policy, with respect to legal immigrants it had made a point of recruiting, in the immediate wake of the global financial crisis. They'd buy (largely) Peruvian/Brazilian factory workers of Japanese descent a plane ticket and approximately $3k of compensation (IIRC) in return for them surrendering their work-compatible visa.
After reading this article, it's crazy to see how the attitude has shifted, and number of immigrants exploded in recent years. I just spent the past 2 weeks in Japan and was surprised by the sheer amount foreign workers. I remember almost a decade ago until COVID, whenever I visited my wife's hometown in very rural Fukuoka, a Russian woman married to a Japanese woman and myself were literally the only foreigners in the town. When I went there 2 weeks ago, I saw several foreign workers at a 7-eleven.
These headlines grabbing schemes are fine but what really matters is the annual migration statistics. If 20k take up this offer but 40k new ones come then it was a failure at best and a smoke screen at worst.
Never trust a European politician who says they don't like immigration. Wait to see what their policies actually do to the figures
This isn't a new approach. I know Norway used it after the Yugoslavian civil war (and especially the conflict in Kosovo), to encourage refugees to go home. I've also seen ads from some NGOs offering financial support for return.
GDP per capita is an almost completely meaningless metric if you don’t also include cost of living and some way of measuring the quality of goods and services it acquires for you.
In 2024 in America, there have been 133 children killed or injured by gun violence at school. With about 74 million legal children, that’s 0.000798%.
I couldn’t find 2024 statistics, but in 2023 there were 391 gang-related gun deaths in Sweden. With about 10 million people, that’s 0.00391%.
America has gun problems for sure, but school shootings are largely irrelevant compared to deaths from crime and accidents. And it’s not “clear” that you have “a very different set of values” in Europe when we’re discussing a nearly 10 year wave of gun violence in a European country
2. Even by median income US is higher than Sweden and even after adjusting for PPP, so you can use cost of living. US looks better after addressing your concerns.
Is hurricane alley going to pay this wonderful 20k more and is it worth it to live there? I know Europeans who went there but not who stayed. Those are terrible places to actually work.
Watching the new approach Germany is taking by closing borders, this seems like it might be a more viable option. 34k in some of the countries they fled from can move people to a new class of standing. Obviously that presupposes that they have a somewhat functional country to go back to (Yemen, Syria, etc) but I suppose it can’t hurt to try. It’s expensive to deport people anyway, so perhaps using the carrot instead of the stick will work more favorably.
The reality is that countries and governments are made of people. If you piss them off long enough, bad stuff is going to fester and violence will eventually come forth as the “only viable solution”. It’s up to policy makers and politicians to lead public discourse and try to find a solution.
I think the other thing though is that governments need to be more open about the consequences. We’re seeing this now in the Netherlands with the push of the new right wing government to cut immigration visas. But whoops, now we don’t have enough people to fill jobs and the tax base is being pushed to the edge to pay for social services that are only going to get more and more strained.
Without some form of immigration, the west as we know it will cease to function as the population ages and jobs are not filled. So sure, you can vote to keep the immigrants out, but just know you’ll probably die alone from a preventable complication because the home health nurse is stretched between 30 patients in a 24 hour period. Elections and choices alike have consequences and not voting is also a choice.
To end on Sweden again, im sure the rest of Europe will be watching this experiment very closely, though cynically I don’t think it will matter or have much of an effect.
What surprises me is how undiscussed the actual underlying issues are.
Cultural stability and assimilation rate are real processes, that can be influenced by various policies.
Similar, economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications.
Yet these things aren't part of most of these discussions: instead it's sound bites and hyping extreme scenarios (on all sides) as common occurrences.
--
In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration.
Yet immigration and assimilation create cultural friction with the then-dominant national culture, so that needs to be managed.
Ultimately, I'd like to see more honest communication around "We're encouraging immigration to drive our economy" and "Here are the things that immigrants are having to deal with, as they adjust to living in our country, and what you can do to help them."
It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible?
> We're encouraging immigration to drive our economy
But this is an official communication in Europe - we need the numbers to grow. Rapes, shootings and bombings are a small price to pay for ever-increasing GDP and next bonus for CEOs.
> It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job?
By being cheaper and agreeing on worse working conditions. Privatizing profits and socializing losses. Liberal credo.
> for ever-increasing GDP and next bonus for CEOs.
Or healthcare and social systems not collapsing in a few decades? Europeans have three options: start having more children, start working well into your 70s or accept a lot of immigrants (who are consequently are also likely to have much more children due to their cultural & religious “values”).
The last one seems like the easiest option if you are a politician/voter in your 50s-60s+ since you won’t live long enough to see all of the outfall.
I agree and disagree with specific points in your reply.
Yes, Europeans should start having more children if they want to keep their way of living. But no, immigrants will not save demography, as data shows that migrants tend to have less and less children in subsequent generations (ignoring the fact that fertility rate is falling everywhere around the world, even in poorer countries). It is not a panacea, it is not even a palliative. Nobody can point to any country in Europe and say that mass immigration changed it for the better (some limited immigration may be beneficial, though). And this was my point - immigration benefits mostly those that own factories, capital etc.
You are right in your last sentence - gerontocracy is taking a future from their children. Everywhere.
I didn’t say that immigration is a longterm solution. It might delay the collapse of social security, healthcare etc. systems which is the main thing that matters to the people who hold the majority of political power in Europe (those in their late 50s and > 60). Expecting them to willfully sacrifice their personal wellbeing for a more sustainable longterm solution wouldn’t make a lot of sense. So we are pretty stuck…
> as data shows that migrants tend to have less and less children in subsequent generations
Depends. If they don’t assimilate and don’t abandon their religious and cultural practices that might not happen. e.g. the Haredi in Israel (not exactly immigrants in the same way but an example of how very high birth rates can be maintained. Unfortunately this type people are extremely unproductive economically and hold extreme political views..)
> And this was my point - immigration benefits mostly those that own factories, capital etc.
I don’t fully agree. From the economic perspective at least. Having a higher proportion of young/working age, productive adults in the population benefits everyone short to medium term.
US handled this specific problem much better than Europe overall though. First of all they managed to attract the most capable and productive emigrants (Europe is rarely the first option) and have done a much better job at assimilating them.
Consequently US is in a much better position demographically compared to Europe, China and the rest of the developed world.
>economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. [...] In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration.
It is possible to make the argument that negative birth rates are either (1) a result of overpopulation correcting itself or (2) a result of social problems relating to factors like marriage and career goals. I would consider (1) to be a strong form of this argument and (2) to be a weak form. (1) being true implies that there is essentially no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries, and that the population actually should go down in the short term (say over the next few decades or so) until it reaches some balanced level at which the birth rate would likely naturally return to ~2.1 This seems like it may actually be the case in certain countries like Japan and Korea where most of the population lives in high density cities and it is even more clear in cities like Hong Kong which has a population density of 7,060 people per square kilometer[0] and a birth rate of 0.7.[1] and Singapore. If (1) is true, high immigration would always be a net negative in the long term. If (2) is true immigration is acting as a band-aid for solving that problem, and once that problem is solved the specific argument you gave in favor of immigration would not be valid anymore. I think both (1) and (2) are true to different degrees in different countries. It is hard to argue that the issue with eg. Singapore's low birth rate has nothing to do with it having the third highest population density in the world.[2-3] Some European cities also have extremely high density cities such as Paris, but there is considerable variability, which leads me to the conclusion that the answer involves both (1) and (2).
>It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible?
One reason might be that immigrants are willing to work for less pay. Additionally immigrant families are more likely to live in denser housing, for example in multi-generational or multi-family households, to reduce cost of living,[4-6] which is something non-immigrants generally do not want to do. These are just two among perhaps dozens of factors. The two above factors are related to my earlier point about there potentially being "no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries."
I think you are ignoring the core issue. The problem is not so much the population decreasing but it getting older. If the average age goes up (and therefore average productivity goes down significantly) that will likely outweigh all of the potential advantages you have discussed.
What is more, unless we change how democracy works (e.g. young people and those who have children (<18) get extra votes the older generations will keep voting for policies that only benefit them and make things even worse longterm.
When you say you disagree, is it with (1), (2) or both? If you meant you disagree with (1) but agree with (2), which seems to be the case based on your comment, why is there an inverse correlation between population density and TFR in developed countries?[0] It seems obvious that housing prices in a given city will in general increase and house size will decrease according to population density. If that is the case, it follows that potential parents will need to work longer before having children, which in turn decreases TFR. Look at apartment size in the US vs East Asia, for example.[1-3] It seems impossible for population density to increase while dwelling size remains constant, unless there is gap between the "legal" boundaries of a city in terms of what is counted toward population density and the "real" city which then would have to start out as smaller and grow larger at the outskirts.
[0] https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2002.1117 - "When explaining the level of fertility, population density comes out second in importance after female literacy, yet still well ahead of the traditionally studied factors: female labour force participation, income, urbanization and food security. This strong negative effect of population density on the level of fertility five years later is statistically significant in almost all years, both at the global level and among the sub-group of developing countries. " Note that this is after trying to account for other factors: "It is worthwhile to have a closer look at this apparently strong bivariate relationship between density and fertility because it might not really reflect a causal relationship, but rather could be due to some other developmental variables in the background, such as level of income or level of education that might simultaneously lead to lower fertility and make higher population densities possible. For this reason tables 3, 4 and 5 give sets of multiple regressions that study the relationship of population growth and fertility to population density while controlling some of the other social and economic variables measured." (Developing countries also show an inverse correlation, as mentioned in the quote)
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1350102/usa-apartment-si... - The smallest city by apartment size is Seattle at 689 square feet and then Minneapolis at 720. Both do not have a very high densities compared to the largest US cities by density. Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, SF and DC are next in that list, however, and they are all high density. I will also note that apartments do not automatically shrink when population density increases and there are a lot of historical factors that perhaps play a larger role for the size of apartments as well as the difference between the legal boundaries of a city and the boundaries of the city as relevant to this discussion. This said, landlords theoretically should opt to convert one large apartment to two smaller ones (or two large ones to three smaller ones) although I don't know how common that actually is given you need to install new plumbing, gain permits etc. to do that.
> Cultural stability and assimilation rate are real processes, that can be influenced by various policies. [...] Yet immigration and assimilation create cultural friction with the then-dominant national culture, so that needs to be managed.
You're getting it backwards: What creates a lot more cultural friction is lack of assimilation. And Sweden officially abandoned assimilation as a goal under Olof Palme in the 1970s. That, and the fact that it was taboo to criticize this lack for many decades, is what has put Sweden where it is now.
Sure, public debate there looks ugly now, mainly because so many on the left still live in the past and basically accuse anyone to the right of Palme of being Genghis Khan's and Hitler's secret love child. But still, the actual government finally having officially abandoned at least some of the previously-mandatory virtue signalling is one of the few promising signs that Sweden may still have some way forward.
> Ultimately, I'd like to see more honest communication around "We're encouraging immigration to drive our economy" and "Here are the things that immigrants are having to deal with, as they adjust to living in our country, and what you can do to help them."
Unfortunately I'm still doubtful that they'll have the balls to tell it all thew way like it is, to wit: "The one thing that immigrants have to deal with in order to live in our country and not destroy it, is to assimilate; to become Swedish."
> It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job?
And all the virtue signallers (which I can't quite tell whether you are one of) should probably reflect: Couldn't be because they're "competing" while living on social benefits and working on the black market, paying no taxes or social security fees, could it?
Exactly! Those damn immigrants who come here and leach on the system while accepting a stipend and going home! While they take our jobs and leech off of unemployment benefits!
They refuse to integrate and steal our woman!
The entire point of being a refugee is that you can't go home. It sounds like a trick question. "Haha, if you could go home then you're not really a refugee, so we're deporting you instead."
Perhaps that explains why almost nobody applied and only one got it last year. Many would love to go home. They just can't.
Some large percentage of those “refugees” go to their original countries for vacations[1]… so apparently it’s not so much being a refugee (as in being persecuted), but rather economic and welfare opportunists who refuse to integrate. Now, true, western economic migrants don’t always integrate, however, they typically have set stays and plan going back to their home counties and aren’t a drain to the host countries.
There seems to be so much distinction between immigrants and citizens. Citizens can be 'smoochers' too, but you don't see anyone exiling them from their home countries.
As for integration, I don't see why people who are judgemental. There are tons of immigrants to the US who don't speak good English. Are you going to tell them to get the hell out of this country? What if they're parents of children who learn to speak English better than their native languages? That happened a lot.
People should be able to improves their lives. Sometime that means moving to a different country. Sometime that means struggling hard where they are.
Of course there are native moochers and if we could offload them to another country that wants to take responsibility for them great. Since there aren’t any that I know of, outside of western countries wanting to take responsibility for non-western countries’ social and economic shortcomings, it’s not viable. Do you see rich middle eastern countries taking in any refugees from anywhere in any significant numbers? Many of those countries are in better economic standing than European counties.
In the meantime, we can take care of our own and they can take care of their own, if that’s their culture; which may not be the case and it’s up to them to shape their own society how they want. We had to shed blood to get where we are with wars of independence as well as a civil war. Time for them to man up and shape their own societies to their own customs and liking.
We don’t need to be the Nannie’s of the world. We need to take care of our own problems, of which there are many, including homelessness, drug addiction, depreciated wages often exacerbated by cheap labor. No, I’m with the Bernie of the early nineties.
A country shouldn’t accept people who worsen their country. Where that line is, I dunno, but importing the dregs of society from all over the world is not a winning strategy.
> As for integration, I don't see why people who are judgmental.
People are judgmental because mass migration from high-crime countries transformed Sweden from one of the world's safest countries to having the highest rate of gun violence in the EU, and Sweden has been increasingly transparent about the situation.
Because of the political climate in most Western countries today, we can't have a rational discussion about negative effects of mass migration, or consider scenarios where the negative impact might outweigh the benefits. It's just a conversation we can't have without shallow knee-jerk accusations of racism and fascism and Nazism and so on.
> shallow knee-jerk accusations of racism and fascism and Nazism and so on
It's important to understand that, particularly in Sweden, it was actually neo-nazis who opposed immigration for a long time.
This probably isn't the case anymore, but it's hard to convince people who remember and were there that it isn't the case. It doesn't help when people don't bring numbers to the table (or the numbers that matter). Some incredibly stupid people feel compelled to bring race or ethnicity to the conversation and that can be very tainting. There doesn't need to be a lot of them, just a few can discredit.
I heard that some years ago a Swedish professorin who published some crime statistics got in trouble because the statistics showed that some subgroups are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime; however, some did not like this getting published because it show how bad some subgroups are within society --probably the same group would not have the same reaction if the statistics showed some other subgroup was being disproportionately reactionary.
The problem with such data is that it can be used to draw incorrect and incredibly racist conclusions.
The obvious conclusion is that those subgroups are particularly disenfranchised. Meaning they're more likely to be impoverished, earn less on average on a household basis, are more likely to be discriminated against, are more likely to live in high-crime areas, etc.
But if you don't include those statistics alongside the one you have, then you give the impression that some subgroup is just "magically" pre-disposed to crime. uh oh. Now you'll have people saying darker skin colored people are more animalistic in nature, their blood tainted. And now we've gone to Eugenics and before you know it, we're in Nazi land.
So you do have to be careful not to draw the wrong conclusions. And, if those conclusions COULD be drawn, you have to nip it in the bud. The absolute last thing neo-nazis need is fuel.
I'm not sure that this approach works. I think on some level trying to "hide" the data or whatever you want to call this process kind of validates a lot of neo-nazi beliefs
It's complicated and hard to tell. One should, at the very least, include other relevant data. That could very well be better than hiding. The problem is statistics can, and are, cherry picked constantly.
I think there's an opportunity here for some neo-nazi belief systems to get credibility from large organizations.
I think the bigger problem was how revelatory it was. You certainly could compare people at similar socioeconomic levels one native and the other immigrant and then make some conclusions. It's not a surprise that if you bring in people who are unproductive in your society that they will be problematic. It seems the establishment does not want to admit this is so and want to hide it to minimize the pushback. It's not that different from instead of low skilled immigrants you decide to release native criminal offenders early and then try to hide any recidivism figures. It's dishonest and does not allow the population to make a democratic decision for themselves.
Is there a difference between a refugee and a migrant? I'd suppose a migrant can take the money and go home and afford themself a better life, whereas for a refugee it will take much more than economic resources.
The problem in Europe is that many migrants try the refugee process though they're not in danger. They often throw away their documents so it's really hard to figure out where they're really from and it costs the states lots of money. At the same time they're taking places of real refugees.
By definition there’s a difference, but realistically most refugees are lying migrants, claiming refugee status when in fact they are not in real danger and just want the economic benefits.
The economic benefits of… having a couple of months of mandatory unemployment while the asylum application is processed? Followed by the same stuff you'd have to do if you hadn't done that?
The asylum process doesn't give you a significantly better foundation than if you had applied for work before moving, it's just a delay that may also get you rejected. It's like getting free meals from your hospital by pretending to be ill.
Och det förutsatt att du pratar svenska eller har ett yrke där du klarar dig utan. AI-översättning (så här) kommer inte att klippa det.
(Sechs Jahre nach meiner Ankunft in Berlin, und meine Deutschkenntnisse bleibt nur 'okay')
As little as possible might be more than they could get elsewhere. Plus if you don't have a tax ID you don't pay taxes.
Additionally they could be working in the gig economy. I swear I have never had a delivery from uber eats where the person doing the delivery was the same as the photo on the app. What's happening there is they are renting the account for the day.
Don't get me wrong these people are being exploited, but they could be making more than if they were home.
Even if someone is trying to game the system from a better position such as fleeing Ukraine, they're going to face competition from people *that poor*, who are otherwise in the same position.
Crucially, this is bellow the 24200 SEK (2.133,15 Euro) tax-free allowance where they wouldn't pay tax anyway.
> Don't get me wrong these people are being exploited, but they could be making more than if they were home.
Are you sure those people aren't trafficked, rather than in your country voluntarily? Such exploitation is also a problem, but I'd say a different one.
> Are you sure those people aren't trafficked, rather than in your country voluntarily? Such exploitation is also a problem, but I'd say a different one.
Weird switch: First you're saying "these poor bastards probably don't get paid much at all", and now it's "This might be so lucrative that it's profitable to traffic people to do it" -- how does that add up? Would you make a business of importing, say, Syrians or Pakistanis to Sweden, where they'll get social security in their own name, and can therefore easily get away from you and live on that?
Sure, many of them "have been traficked" in the sense that they've paid (what was at least to them) a fortune to be smuggled into Western European countries or at least up to their borders (for varying definitions thereof; like, say, the British border being in a camp on the French coast). But that's "traficking" in the sense of "price-gouging on travel tickets", not "being sold into slavery". People who pay a lot to get somewhere are pretty much by definition there voluntarily, aren't they?
One group of people that is apparently trafficked in the other sense are Roma (and probably Sinti, for all I know) from Eastern Europe, above all Romania, who are kept in ramshackle camps on the outskirts of cities and towns and set to begging more centrally all day long. But AFAIK they don't have any residential permits at all, neither permanent nor temporary. They're in the country not as refugees or any other kind of migrants, but under the Schengen open-travel rules, basically as tourists. If they get in trouble with the authorities they're often just rotated out for a while and then shipped in again. But not being official residents of the country they're not (AIUI) eligible for this migrant-go-home bonus, so irrelevant to this discussion.
> This might be so lucrative that it's profitable to traffic people to do it
Economics shift hugely if someone has to live 12 to a room and eat whatever they're given without caring about food poisoning etc.
> where they'll get social security in their own name, and can therefore easily get away from you and live on that?
That's presuming they are on the system. An actual asylum seeker is, a trafficked person probably isn't. And I may be willing and able to walk away, but I've not been moved to a mystery city without even knowing the language and where the only peers are in the same position as me.
That's where I think the problem is, not people who paid a lot for a ticket, which I don't count as "trafficked" but rather "scammed".
The largest of those numbers is €6.28/day, which may seem like a lot if you're coming from Syria, unless you look at the food prices. And if you're in a place with free food, the max is €2.12/day.
Low enough that Ukraine and Kenya look like economic powerhouses.
If you're from south (or east) of the Mediterranean and want easy money, there are many many easier and better ways to do so than travelling across half the continental EU to end up in one of the colder bits.
Refugees typically apply for asylum (you can look up what this means under international treaties). The base claim is that their lives are at risk in their home country, for example due to religious persecution.
The article used both terms, more or less interchangeably. I'm not sure why they weren't more precise about it, but it implies that they really have refugees in mind rather than, say, expat Portuguese.
It's a legal offer, they can't just turn their back on it. Though it could have consequences if the person wants to come back and claim refugee status again I guess.
But of course a lot of refugees are not really in danger but just try the refugee way for better economic opportunities. This amount is high enough to perhaps appeal to those. I think the main reason it wasn't popular is that the amount was negligible.
I think overall it's a good thing, it's voluntary and they free up spaces for refugees that are really in danger.
Well, assuming progress in the place they fled from, there are bound to be periods in between "You'll die if you go back now" and "It's perfectly fine to go back now". For instance, when the invaders have gone, but there are too few homes due to the destruction and winter is approaching.
Wars do end though. It’s not like there are no exceptions to this. Lots of refugees want better economic circumstances too. It’s not always a threat of violence back home.
Unless your side won, the war ending doesn't have any affect on whether it's safe for you to return or not.
In the case of Syria, the Caesar sanctions will probably cripple Syria's reconstruction. So there probably won't be much to return to for the foreseeable future.
My wife was a refugee in a war-torn country. The war ended and her family lives there peacefully for decades. It is possible. Not saying it always happens, I'm saying this is a reasonable thing for some people to do.
Was there really 'sides' in terms of people? Most people in Syria just fled the onslaught but were not part of either side (the Assad regime and the various rebel groups). And obviously we're not going to grant refugee status to some of these groups like Isis rebels.
But yeah it's in Europe's interests to quickly rebuild there
Has Sweden been destroying Africa? Yes, I know about Lundin Oil, what else? And the rest of Europe? Sources please? :)
Climate refugees are not Europe's responsibility. Check USA, China and India.
Why should Europe destroy USA relations over Iran. Why is Iran our responsibility?
The current war in the Middle East was started by Hamas on October 7th. Israel have my full personal support, but Europe does not "supply a ton of weapons to Israel". We are currently sending all stock to Ukraine. But again, the war got started by Hamas. Hezbollah is an Iranian puppet. Hezbollah shelled and rocket attacked Israel, is Israel not allowed to respond? Should Israel just take the attacks? Why is Israel responsible for the internal politics of Hamas/Palestine/Hezbollah?
I am MORE pro USA now than before. Has USA done bad stuff like war crimes? Sure. But let us be frank, the Cold War never went away. Now you are either with the USA and Europe side OR you are with Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea side. It is clear what side you are on.
The history that the land used to be Ottoman Empire, then under British rule due to WW1, Britain allowed Israel to be made, then Arab nations attacked Israel 3 times in war, Israel won 3 times, took some land, now Arabs are mad because they started wars that Israel won.
That about covers it.
>Europe should be on Europe's side. Not be the lapdog of the United States. But that's unfathomable for many people.
Putin talking point. Finland and Sweden are now in NATO. It's over for you, Ivan.
Britain allowed Israel to be made, then Arab nations attacked Israel 3 times in war, Israel won 3 times, took some land, now Arabs are mad because they started wars that Israel won.
And these are standard hasbara talking points. You're forgetting that they don't work on people who actually knows the basic history of the region.
I agree in part. We supported many proxy wars of the US and some that were based on total lies (2nd Iraq war, Afghanistan where we really had no business and accomplished nothing).
Iran, I don't know.. I feel like their beef is with the US and we're just not really a party in this whole mess. We don't owe them anything and they don't consider us friends either. As for Gaza you probably know that this is a hugely contentious issue even in Europe. A lot of us are really strongly against these weapon supplies. In the Netherlands citizens even managed to get a court order for the state to supply F-35 parts to Israel: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/dutch-cou...
Some countries like Germany are too pro-Israel due to some shame from actions in the past but I agree they should open their eyes to what is happening now. I don't condone what Hamas has done and is doing but both sides are bad. We shouldn't support either but bring them to the negotiating table.
> You don't get to complain about those people wanting to pursue happiness just like literally any of your country people.
This is a different issue from refugeeism IMO, although some economic migrants are claiming refugee status (and thus taking resources from those who are real refugees). It takes a long time to reject them because they often destroy their documentation. These are much more of a problem than real refugees. And they are giving the real refugees a bad name.
I'm very left-wing but I do think we need to limit immigration from outside EU. We can't open the gates without limit to anyone who wants to move here because it would destroy us too. The political polarisation is already so strong (a bit like the US in fact). The Netherlands has grown by several million inhabitants by immigration alone and in some cities migrants with a non-western heritage are now in the majority.
This is a problem because of pretty seriously different social norms (e.g. stances on LGBTIQ+ topics, freedom of opinion etc). And this polarisation is fueling the extreme-right parties which we already see happening in Europe. In the Netherlands the extreme-right party became the biggest one in parliament in the last election. I don't agree with their points but this polarisation is tearing the country apart, and we see the same in the rest of Europe (France only recently dodged a bullet there).
The issues that are being blamed on the refugees and migrants are squarely to blame on our previous neoliberal governments who completely neglected affordable housing programs and environmental issues (nitrogen, natural gas dependencies) so we're now in a severely limited situation. But knowing that makes no real difference to the situation.
And I don't think the middle east was really destroyed by us. In fact they have a lot more money than us. Africa yes but that's been much longer ago. And even countries that are free are shooting themselves in the foot with corruption. This is not our fault.
I think you're mistaken about the Africa situation. France participated in the NATO Libya operations to preserve the dominance of the CFA Franc in Africa.
80% of “refugees” vacation back in their source country. If they were truly afraid for their lives they wouldn’t be doing that. They just want a better life. Can’t blame them. Who wouldn’t?
I've known people to go back on vacations who probably shouldn't, but an outsider, weakly under the protection of a foreign country, who doesn't seem like they are going to get back into their old life is usually not a political priority.
It’s very hard to deport someone legally against their will in some cases (i.e. they are refugees, don’t have any documents, are “underage” etc.) There are all sorts of technicalities and legal processes than can be appealed.
Looking at this technically, I think that if by French you mean you have an EU citizenship. so in current state where parties are in the EU. you're eligible to work and live in Sweden without additional complexities and you're in a different state.
The fine print:
Of 250,000 migrants
70 applied for the grant and one got it.
If your goal is to send people home here’s how you do it. Hire 50 lawyers to help migrants apply for the grant and provide translation assistance. You’ll 100x the applicants and 10x the success rate. Anything else is useless chatter.
> Money set aside for repatriation may be better spent on integrating refugees and other migrants, through programs like language lessons, job assistance and training, which could help newcomers build a future in Sweden, she said.
So just to be clear, a Neo-Nazi political group rebranded, and has successfully passed a law to use significant amounts of taxes to deport immigrants instead of using the same amount of money to integrate them?
The difference is that their approach might work (it most likely won’t achieve anything.. but still) just spending the same (or higher) amounts of money is less likely to achieve anything without significant policy changes (forced assimilation and such which seems like even more cruel that semi-voluntary deportation)
The narrative of "If you don't like unfettered illegal immigration you're a Nazi" has really lost its stopping power. No one in the centre believes that anymore and most mainstream political parties see the problem quite clearly. What you decry as the rise of fascism is really just the decline in persuasiveness of this tired rhetoric.
The most charitable interpretation of your statement is that it's a straw man argument. Who said anything about "unfettered illegal immigration"? Even that's an objetively false characterization.
Take the Haitian migrants in Ohio that are currently the victims of intentional blood libel. As an aside, identifying, villifying and demonizing an out-group like this, particularly to intentionally incite violence against them, is a key aspect of fascism.
The objective falsehood here is that they're "illegal immigrants". They're not. They're Temporary Protected Status ("TPS") holders. It is 100% legal and moral to seek asylum.
And then we proceed to the myth of "the center", much like the myth of the "swing voter". What the US has politically is a choice between the far-right and the center-right who have completely capitulated to far-right messaging on immigration.
Every aspect of far-right anti-immigrant messaging is verifiably and objectively false. The latest lie is "they're eating the cats" [1] but there are so many more. The "migrant crime" hysteria is blood libel [2].
Where? In the first available country of safe refuge because you're fleeing political persecution or war? Yeah, I'd say that's 100% legal and moral. That's how you get from Syria to Turkiye.
Is it legal and moral to then pass through 5 or 6 countries on your way to the USA or Sweden and request "asylum" because you want to find safe refuge in the country that has the best economic opporunity (or benefits)? How about buying a plane ticket from MENA to Mexico and then claiming asylum at the US border? Certainly the Mexican gov't isn't beholden to whatever dictator you were escaping in the Middle East. Could it be you're actually just abusing the asylum system to improve your economic outlook?
Mayyybe that abuse is legal, but if you want to say it's moral you'll have to answer to the millions of people who pay money, fill out the forms, and immigrate to the US legally in search of the same opportunities. My take on it would be that cutting the line isn't moral, but maybe your values differ.
I’m a legal immigrant and I had to wait in line like everyone else. How is that fair to people like me when someone cuts in line?
I’m not exactly from a “paradise country” myself so I understand these people very well so please don’t use that “you don’t know their situation” talking point with me. We all feel for them but we need to be practical. Rules are rules and they must be followed. That’s how societies function.
I’m a legal immigrant too. But I don’t take issue with people escaping horrible circumstances and making a better life in my country. Nor do I see it as “cutting in line.”
How? Them being allowed to stay will significantly reduce the chances of those who play by the rules and follow the standard process.
Also you’re implicitly supporting a sort of “hunger games” and think that it’s perfectly acceptable to allow immigrants to risk their lives in the Mediterranean/English Channel/Sahara etc. for a chance to get in.
Of course it’s not your personal fault and in any case it doesn’t matter as long as you don’t think about it but thousands of people are dying because ignoring the rules became an option.
Yes, I always point out the journey a lot of them take to the USA is extremely dangerous. I wouldn’t care if it were just grown men doing this since they have some life experience but a lot of times these are children not “teenagers” but literal kids being guided by strangers.
I know people who have crossed illegally through Mexico and the horrors they witnessed, it’s inhumane. So glad you pointed this out in your comment.
Well I won’t be in that situation in the foreseeable future, and I’d rather make my life better at the polls than altruistically throw a bone to strangers
> In the first available country of safe refuge because you're fleeing political persecution or war? Yeah, I'd say that's 100% legal and moral. That's how you get from Syria to Turkiye.
Is it moral to put the burden on a random country (Turkey in this case) just because it happens to border a country at war? Why shouldn't the huge economic costs be spread out more evenly?
Why should Turkey accept any immigrants that have no right to asylum? Why should the spreading of economic migrants all over europe be morally correct towards any european citizen? Why should anyones hard earned tax money go towards such people and not our own? In Germany, bridges are collapsing and the train network is massively underfunded and derelict which would need a massive investment. And yet, there is no money left. I wonder what is such a massive financial drain that this can't be done.
That’s quite a claim. Any evidence that Germany’s purported lack of money for fixing their infrastructural issues is due to immigration? Because it sounds a lot like the baseless red meat that the far right likes to throw at their base. (See “£350m a week for the NHS.”)
I did not say that this is the main reason, I said it is a drain on taxpayers money. And since every migrant costs lots of money, not just directly in the form of unearned social welfare but indirectly due to health insurance, etc., this is money that can not otherwise be used - for example, as investments into infrastructure. Paying welfare to millions of economic migrants is simply not possible without other areas suffering and, as can be seen from recent polls, is not wanted by many Germans.
But if the total “drain” is, for example, 1%, especially when other budget categories are much larger slices of the pie, then it is effectively a non-issue. And you also have to factor in the economic contributions of immigrants, many of whom presumably have jobs and pay taxes. So having the actual numbers on hand is very important. (Even if we’re assuming that Germany’s declining infrastructure is due to lack of money, which seems suspect to me. More likely to simply be a lack of political will.)
Germany is struggling to meet its 2% military budget requirement, as mandated by the EU. It's not a non-issue at all. And other budget categories - like healthcare - are already expensive, not only for the government spending but normal people because contributions are rising.
> And you also have to factor in the economic contributions of immigrants, many of whom presumably have jobs and pay taxes.
Yes, a whole third has some form of employment. And employment can also mean a mini job that pays practically no taxes and costs the taxpayer due to additional payments for rent, etc. The number of migrants who actually contribute is small. The rest receives welfare.
> And then we proceed to the myth of "the center", much like the myth of the "swing voter". What the US has politically is a choice between the far-right and the center-right who have completely capitulated to far-right messaging on immigration.
A gradient or spectrum always has a centre. It's less a myth and more of a mathematical property for this sort of object.
Your inability to see this centre as the centre is just you broadcasting that you're a political extremist. If you stand insanely far enough to the left I'm sure everyone looks like a Christian fundamentalist. Similarly if you stand far enough to the right everyone looks like a cat-eating illegal immigrant. It must be tough to live like this but I don't think you saying "Everyone else is conservative" bolsters your credibility the way you think it does.
Well Americans keep voting in the successors to a a racist, segregationist openly pro KKK party (and I’m obviously not talking about the Republican party). I don’t see any fundamental problems with that, though. People and organizations change over time.
As much as one might dislike someone like Meloni she isn’t exactly Mussolini or closer to him in almost any way than to liberal/moderate politicans.
I don’t care much for Meloni but how exactly is she fascist or anything like that, compared to most other conservative politicians (who I don’t care much for either..)?
I’m not talking about parties like AfD or others funded by (objectively) fascist regime in Russia.
My original comment doesn't claim these parties are exactly fascist or nazi, but that it's reasonable to call them fascist and nazi. Given we have the hindsight of WWII, flirting with fascism or nazism is bad enough. One doesn't need to tick every box and grow a Chaplin mustache.
If a bunch of fools join a party with roots in, and affection for, fascism, then decent people ought just to call them 'fascists'. There are only so many hours in a day. If an Italian, post '45, still has any doubt that fascism was a disaster, then he or she is a dangerous idiot: not worth splitting hairs over.
If others want to wade in a metaphorical lake of vomit and entertain excuses like 'only some of them are nazis' or 'the roman salute might have been ironic' or 'they just said that to trigger the woke leftists' then fine, that's their business.
I'm too old to bother. I'm not going to weep myself remorsefully to sleep over calling cretins 'fascists' or 'nazis'
One might as well argue over whether it's acceptable to call a lady who occasionally kills kittens, a 'cat killer'; with the opposing view being "but she's not a career cat killer"
This seems like an extremely high bar, that doesn’t seem to be practical in real world conditions (in the context of people like Meloni, not people who openly call themselves fascist/nazis and/or embrace their ideological beliefs).
Why don’t we apply the same standards to British Conservative politicians?
Why aren’t they expected to unequivocally denounce Churchill and most other major British politicians that preceded him (I’m not directly equating him personally with Mussolini but he and many other British prime ministers before him were brutal imperialists whose actions regularly directly or indirectly resulted in millions of deaths). I don’t see how British Imperialism was somehow fundamentally inherently less evil than Italian Fascism (it might have been to some extent but where do we draw the line?). Yet we accept or tolerate all sorts of symbolism from that period with little controversy.
British Empire might not be on the same level as Nazi Germany, the USSR, Mao’s China but I don’t see how it (or British Imperialism as an ideology) was particularly less evil than Fascist Italy.
On one hand it didn’t ally itself with an even more evil and genocidal regime (largely due to strategic reasons and not ideological affinity, these were still rival ideologies after all), was a limited democracy and occasionally allowed some freedom of speech on the other hand it did directly cause much more deaths and suffering over its existence). I think the main difference is that Britain (unlike Italy) was actually actually good at subjugating and exploiting other countries (with an occasional “lite” genocide mixed in), therefore it was in a position to shape the historical narrative and we have collectively decided that their positive contributions more or less outweigh all of the other stuff..
What I said might sound pretty distasteful, maybe even disgusting but I don’t see how is it particularly worse than selective [hypocritical] moral indignation).
Meloni isn’t anymore fascist than Boris Johnson is someone who wants to re-subjugate Ireland and reestablish the British empire.
And what other options are there? If we demonize people like her we’ll just end up with someone who might actually publicly embrace fascist values and ideas and would actually openly support fascist states like Russia (unless there is some way to suddenly convert 20-30% or of the electorate in Italy and other European countries to social-liberalism…).
Although FdI rejects the "neo-fascist" label, it has been applied due to the party's history dating back to the Italian Social Movement, its far-right ties, its appeal to neo-fascist themes on social media like Facebook, and some party leaders' nostalgia for Italian fascism, including Roman salutes. Some party members have celebrated Benito Mussolini, with fascist memorabilia in some local offices. Some members of the Mussolini family have run for FdI, such as Rachele Mussolini, granddaughter of Mussolini, for the City Council of Rome, and Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, great-grandson of Mussolini, for the 2019 European Parliament election.
According to Expo, it is generally agreed that the Sweden Democrats have never been a neo-Nazi party, although some of the SD's early members and founders had previously been connected with Swedish fascist and white nationalist groups. A study by Expo documented that around nine of the original 30 people who played a role in founding the SD had direct associations to known Nordic fascist organisations such as the New Swedish Movement and the neo-Nazi Nordiska rikspartiet, although most of these members were no longer active within the party by the mid-1990s. The party's first auditor, Gustaf Ekström, was a Waffen-SS veteran and had been a member of the national socialist party Svensk Socialistisk Samling in the 1940s. The SD's first chairman Anders Klarström and deputy board members and party co-founders Fritz Håkansson and Sven Davidson had all been active in the Nordic Realm Party. Klarström later elaborated he had briefly been part of the NRP as a teenager before distancing himself from it by the time he became SD leader. The SD's logo from the 1990s until 2006 was a version of the torch used by the British National Front. Political historian Duncan McDonnell has argued that it is disputed as to whether the SD was explicitly founded to be a neo-fascist movement, but it was widely known to publicly align itself with extreme fringe politics and faced criticism in the late 1980s and early 1990s for attracting skinhead gangs to its public events.
'Only' 30% of the original SD were fascists or neo-Nazis. My bad /s
──────────────────────────────────────────
"What you decry as the rise of fascism is really just the decline in persuasiveness of this tired rhetoric."
> Some members of the Mussolini family have run for FdI, such as Rachele Mussolini, granddaughter of Mussolini, for the City Council of Rome, and Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, great-grandson of Mussolini, for the 2019 European Parliament election.
Son of Rachele, or some other branch? Either way, some humongous balls on his parents there, naming him Caius Julius Caesar... (Wonder how much that fucked him up?)
> > What you decry as the rise of fascism is really just the decline in persuasiveness of this tired rhetoric.
> Sigh.
Yeah well, sucks to be wrong. Best you can do is man up, admit it, change your views to conform with reality, and move on.
Hey, let's try not to go full on ad hominem, shall we? Much nicer if you had actually addressed the text in my comment and not made up stuff that isn't there [0].
Crime in Sweden (and elsewhere) is still a serious problem. But so is racism, which simplifies societal problems to a question of innate qualities of foreigners when instead one ought to consider societal, historic, cultural, and economic factors as a whole. You know, real knowledge and stuff that actually makes it possible to solve problems. Symbolic gestures like offering to pay money for their departure don't solve any problems; it only serves to offend, degrade, and alienate.
You might also be interested to hear that Sweden comes in at 118 in the global organized crime index, UK is 61, USA is 67, Germany 80 etc [1].
[0] 'you (...) say "The people who have a problem with this are racist" ' - I never said that, and I don't believe it either.
Would you accept $34k to move to Syria? I have no idea who this incentive is designed for. The (financial) opportunity cost alone totally swamps the incentive before we even consider the risk in living in a volatile dictatorship.
On a macro level, moving people from functional, high-productivity countries to failed states makes even less sense. Totally hapless policy from Sweden here.
> Those who fail to benefit the country in which they are guests
That's hardly more specific. In an attempt to steel-man - before you edited your comment (or left another one? hard to tell in the HN UI), you referred to criminals. Well, this incentive is pointed at all migrants, not just criminals. I struggle to understand how law-abiding immigrants don't benefit their host country, yet the Swedish government would like to see them leave as well.
Yes, I edited the comment as I decided that criminals is too narrow. It's really a simple evaluation of whether you extract more value than you produce - which is usually true with criminals but could be expanded to include any migrant who is receiving state benefits while not making efforts to contribute going forward. Now, obviously there are exceptions and caveats but I posit there's a larger group of non-criminal migrants who are still a net-drain on the society that's supporting them.
