10

SWEDEN’S SELF-INFLICTED IMMIGRATION CRISIS

IF YOU FOLLOW AMERICAN MEDIA, perhaps you already know that Sweden is experiencing something of an immigration crisis. Toward the end of 2015, Benjamin Teitelbaum wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times. For a newspaper that usually has a pro-immigration stand, the title of the article was quite astonishing: “Sweden’s Self-Inflicted Nightmare.” Teitelbaum explained why Sweden’s open immigration policies had turned into a quite unmanageable situation:

Sweden, a country of 9.6 million, lately has been absorbing 10,000 asylum seekers per week, and expects the total number coming into the country this year alone to reach 190,000 – a population greater than that of its fourth largest city. Since the intensification of the immigration crisis in September, municipalities have complained that they lack housing, teachers and classroom space, and doctors for the newcomers. The police have acknowledged that they’ve lost the ability to monitor the whereabouts of foreign nationals within the country. Migration agencies have signaled that they can no longer ensure that unaccompanied minors passing through their offices will be transferred into acceptable living conditions. And leaked emails have shown that government officials are panicking over how they will pay for associated costs.1

Similarly, the Washington Post published an article titled “Even Europe’s Humanitarian Superpower Is Turning Its Back on Refugees.” Authors Griff Witte and Anthony Faiola explained:

When the small, crumpled body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on the Aegean coast Sept. 2, Europe’s humanitarian superpower sprang into action. Sweden’s prime minister headlined gala fundraisers, Swedish celebrities starred in telethons, and a country that prides itself on doing the right thing seemed to rally as one to embrace refugees fleeing for their lives. But after taking in more asylum seekers per capita than any other nation in Europe, Sweden’s welcome mat now lies in tatters. Overwhelmed by the human tide of 2015, the center-left government is deploying extraordinary new border controls and slashing benefits in an unmistakable signal to refugees contemplating the long trek to Sweden in the new year: Stay out.²

To understand what is happening in Sweden, we must turn to 2010, when the country took a turn toward free immigration. That year, a center-right government led by Sweden’s then moderate prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt was reelected. However, during the election the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats gained enough votes to enter the Parliament. The government reacted by signing a deal with the opposition environmental party, which in effect opened up Sweden for nearly free immigration. Later, Reinfeldt explained that his ambition was to isolate Sweden Democrats from power by turning politics in the opposite direction following their rise to power.

Being against open borders [had] became synonymous with being a racist.

Some intellectuals warned that free immigration might not be the best idea. Although reasonable enough, the warnings did not prove popular. Progressive ideas about immigration came to dominate the debate in Sweden, and anybody who voiced criticism toward free immigration was branded as being narrow minded. Being against open borders became synonymous with being a racist. The prevailing attitude was that Sweden would benefit from large rates of inflows. My brother, Tino Sanandaji, was one of the few who voiced criticism against this idea. He was often alone in using facts and figures to argue that the idealistic view that open borders would benefit society was simply not true. To understand the Swedish immigration crisis, one must bear in mind a number of facts, which can seem quite astonishing for an international audience, and were seldom acknowledged during the years when favoring open borders was the only legitimate political view in the country.

First, the Swedish welfare state is very bad at integrating foreigners into its job market. In chapter 9 we saw that immigrants struggle to enter the job markets of Sweden and other Nordic countries. Generous welfare benefits, high taxes, and rigid labor market regulations are simply holding immigrants back. During later years Swedish politics has taken a sharp turn toward less extensive welfare policies. Taxes have been cut, welfare benefits reduced, and labor legislation relaxed. These changes, often called job-fare policies, have boosted job creation in Sweden. Amongst the Swedish right, the conviction grew that job-fare had made it possible to remove borders and open the country for foreign influx. But this is simply not the case. Sweden is a knowledge-intensive economy where higher education is often needed to find employment. Many simple jobs have been automated. Factories have invested in robots, and many stores are moving toward self-checkouts. Immigrants who don’t know Swedish and have limited education simply don’t fit in. Even after the job-fare reforms, many find themselves in a situation where welfare checks are as rewarding as pay slips.

Dagens Nyheter is a leading daily newspaper in Sweden, which is strongly pro-immigrant. However, even Dagens Nyheter at times acknowledges the massive difficulties that the Swedish welfare states have when it comes to integration. Through an in-depth study, the newspaper has followed the outcomes of all refugees granted asylum in Sweden in 2004. Journalists at Dagens Nyheter ask a simple question: how had the future shaped out for them ten years later? The reality was grim to say the least. The median income of the refugees was merely 11,100 Swedish kronor ($1,300) a month, much lower than the Swedish average of 23,700 kronor ($2,800). The family immigrants of refugees earned even less. Ten years after arriving in the country, their median income was as low as 4,500 kronor a month ($530). These very low incomes show that a large segment of all refugees, and likely the vast majority of family immigrants, were not working and instead relying on welfare support. Dagens Nyheter found that at least four out of ten refugees ten years after arrival were still supported by welfare. The newspaper acknowledged that this is likely a significant underestimation, since some municipalities refused to give the journalists the paperwork needed to match individuals to welfare receipts.3

That many immigrants are trapped in welfare dependency, or have low incomes, is a major concern in Sweden. The reason is simple: the country has a generous welfare state, a system that only works if the majority of the population have jobs through which large contributions are made to the tax agency. Perhaps more important, immigration has brought on major social upheaval to Sweden. Remember our quote in chapter 1 from Time magazine in 1976, which described Sweden as a “materialist paradise,” where “no slumps disfigure [the] cities”?⁴ Well, this isn’t the case anymore. It is certainly true that those parts of a city that have an overwhelming Swedish population are typically far from slums. But areas where many immigrants live are a different story altogether.

The Liberal Party in Sweden, which is part of the center-right alliance, used to track the number of socially marginalized city parts in the country.⁵ The definition is simple: less than 60 percent of adults are employed and the city part either has low participation in the democratic process (less than 70 percent had voted in the latest local election) or low school results (share of students who pass ninth grade is under 70 percent). In countries such as the United States, many neighborhoods, particularly those populated by poor minorities, fit this description. In 1990, only three city parts in Sweden did. The country really seemed to be a social democratic paradise. But as this book has shown in detail, the reason was that Sweden at the time was a homogenous country where people followed a uniquely successful culture. As immigrants came to Sweden, many of them failed to reach the same social success. In 2002 the number of marginalized city parts had mushroomed to 128. It is worth remembering that this was before the Swedish welfare state had been reduced in size. In 2004 the number had grown to 155, and in 2006, when the center-right parties took over power, there were 156 marginalized city parts.6

When the Liberal Party became part of the government, they suddenly stopped reporting about how marginalized city districts in Sweden had developed. The party argued that the workfare policies, which were aimed at reducing dependency on welfare handouts, had successfully combated poverty. Arguably, the policies were successful. But as immigration continued, the number of marginalized neighborhoods continued to grow. In 2014 Tino Sanandaji updated the figures that the Liberal Party themselves previously used, and published an updated version for the think tank the New Welfare Foundation. In panic, the Liberal Party released their own updated version just one day after Tino’s report. The results were clear: for the latest available year, 2012, the number of socially marginalized city parts had grown even further, to 186.⁷

The rapid deterioration of immigrant neighborhoods is visible for all to see, and is quite astonishing. In early 2016 Swedish government television reported that the police in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, were on their knees because young men who had migrated from the streets of Morocco and other North African countries were causing massive crime. According to the police, they frequently steal items, abuse security guards, and sexually assault women. When arrested, the young criminals are often released shortly thereafter because authorities lack information about their age, and most of the young men tell the police that they are underage. One police officer explained: “I would never let my children off at Central Station; no police would do that.”8 A recent change is that police carrying automatic weapons are patrolling Stockholm’s metro system, to prevent crime as well as the risk of Islamic terrorism.

Criminal shootouts, previously quite uncommon in peaceful Sweden, have become commonplace not only in Stockholm, but also in Sweden’s second-largest city, Gothenburg. It is no exaggeration to say that criminal gangs, often of immigrant origin, have wrested control of some parts of Gothenburg from the police. Together the two cities have a combined urban population of around 1.5 million. The capitals of Denmark, Norway, and Finland have a combined population of 3.3 million people, yet between 2010 and the first half of 2015, 298 people were wounded from shootouts in Stockholm and Gothenburg, compared to merely 70 in the three other Nordic capitals combined. So, in effect, the two Swedish cities had almost ten times as high gun wound rates as the other large Nordic cities.⁹ Denmark, Norway, and Finland have less of an issue with crime among immigrants simply because they have accepted fewer immigrants. Iceland has barely seen any immigration.

That parts of Swedish cities are turning into something that almost resembles Detroit is a new phenomenon with which the countries’ lax law enforcement struggles to cope. In the third-largest city, Malmö, the majority of the population has immigrant background. There the situation is, in many ways, even worse. Recently, criminal gangs have begun using grenades as weapons in the city. Middle-class families have moved away from parts of Malmö, to distance themselves from crime and violence. Even in the smaller Swedish cities there are immigrant neighborhoods in which violence and shootings have become commonplace. Often these crimes are carried out by young men who either themselves have migrated to Sweden, or are the descendants of immigrants.

In February 2016 the Australian edition of 60 Minutes sent a crew to film a segment on the European refugee crisis in a suburb of Stockholm. The Washington Times reported that the crew was protected by six police officers. When the police escort left, the crew was attacked by locals.10 These kinds of attacks are unfortunately not uncommon. Public servants, bus drivers, and journalists have numerously been targeted by gangs in immigrant neighborhoods. Sometimes police and ambulance staff have been lured by alarms and ambushed by violent gangs.

Welfare policies do not make the country immune to high rates of social exclusion and crime among immigrants.

A part of the explanation might be that Sweden has lax criminal laws and gives too little resources and power to the policy. More important, what we are seeing is a normalization of Sweden compared to the rest of the world. Foreign admirers of Nordic-style social democracy often believe that Nordic policies somehow have eliminated crime. The reality is that Nordic culture has. People who lack the unusual ethics related to individual responsibility, social cohesion, and abiding by the rules that predominated Swedish culture are more likely to turn out on the wrong side of the law. The issue is made worse by the fact that the welfare model makes it difficult for immigrants to get a job, trapping many in a welfare dependency that creates hopelessness. Of course, a question that begs answering is: if Swedish welfare policies do not make the country immune to high rates of social exclusion and crime among immigrants, why should the same policies be expected to solve the social problems of America?

Previously, Sweden had a regulated migration. During the 1990s and the early 2000s the country received around 100 immigrants a week. This is a fairly high number for a small country with a population fewer than 10 million, situated in the cold Nordics, far from the countries from which immigrants come. The brutal civil war in Syria increased migration across Europe, and a growing realization among refugees that Sweden is the most welcoming country for them on the continent combined to increase the inflow substantially. By the end of 2015, around 10,000 immigrants were coming into the country each week.

The Swedish population has shown great openness to this wave of immigrants. Many have volunteered to welcome them and help them reside in the country; many more have donated clothing and other necessities. Almost all municipalities in the country have accepted migrants. However, even meeting the basic needs of refugees soon proved a major constraint on the Swedish welfare system. A survey from late 2015 found that 40 percent of municipalities feel that immigration is putting severe pressure on social services and schools in the short term; 74 percent of municipalities believe that the pressure will also be severe in the long term.11 In southern Sweden, the refugee influx was so high that all available mattresses were reportedly sold out.¹² Tents have been set up in the freezing Swedish winter to accommodate immigrants.

No one really knows how Sweden, where restrictions on building permits have created a major housing crisis, will deal with the massive immigration inflows. What is apparent is that many immigrant families are sharing the same small apartments. In some neighborhoods overcrowding seems to have reached Third World levels. Adding to all this is that Sweden has also seen immigration of thousands of beggars from Eastern Europe. In nearly all, if not all, Swedish cities, beggars are easy to spot on the streets. Since they are not given (much) welfare support, the beggars have created a number of shantytowns across the country. Shantytowns, grenades thrown in the streets, slums, and rampant gangs is hardly what you would traditionally associate with Sweden. Yet there can be little doubt that these are very real social concerns in today’s Sweden, largely as a result of the recent immigration inflows.

The majority of the immigrants are not actually coming from Syria, but from other parts of the world. Sweden accepts most children who come unaccompanied by adults. Contrary to its Nordic neighbors, which are reluctant to accept a large influx of migrants, Swedish authorities have typically accepted the age given by the migrants themselves. Therefore, many Afghan families (many of them living in Iran) have sold their belongings, or borrowed money, to send their oldest child to Sweden in hopes that once one child has been granted asylum, the rest can then follow as family migrants. This make sense, since even if nobody in the family were to find work, the welfare support provided in Sweden creates a much higher standard of living than that to which Afghan families are typically accustomed. The newly arrived are almost exclusively men, and often seem to be much older than actually claimed. As an extreme example, local media reports that a man from Afghanistan accused of raping a child was not fifteen, as he reported, but rather, as evident in his own Facebook profile, forty-five.13

On top of this, Sweden offers a special form of government benefit to children who have lost their parents. An administrative court has decided that this benefit should be given to all refugee children who claim to have lost one or both parents, if only they promise to be telling the truth. The benefit can also be given retroactively for the past two years. Thus, a refugee child who simply claims to have lost both of his parents can be given around 70,000 Swedish kronor (close to $9,000) in retroactive support and an additional 35,000 kronor (close to $4,500) each year until he turns eighteen. This may not seem like a huge sum for an American or a Swede, but it is a small fortune in a country such as Afghanistan. As knowledge of this benefit is spreading, an increasing number of refugee children are claiming it. In 2015 around ten thousand children in Sweden, including those born in the country, received government support for having lost their parents. By 2019 this is expected to have mushroomed to thirty thousand children.¹⁴

These sums are, of course, only a drop in the ocean compared to the total money spent by the Swedish welfare state, but they do illustrate the difficulty of combining extremely progressive ideals with open borders. They also show that immigrants are given huge economic incentives for claiming various government benefits. What do you think happens when a Nordic-style labor market, where high taxes and high entry-level wages make it difficult for immigrants to get a job, is combined with extremely generous benefits? Should we be surprised that many are trapped in dependency and that some even start cheating the system? Is it the immigrants that are to blame or the ill-designed system?

Much of the news relating to immigration and integration in Sweden sounds quite absurd, since the situation is rather unusual. The Swedish system is experiencing a crash from which it is trying to recover. The government that came to power in 2014, a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Environmental Party, were initially nearly paralyzed by the situation. At first, the government expressed support for open borders. In mid-2015 Social Democrat prime minister Stefan Löfven explained that there was “no limit” on the number of refugees that the country could take in.15 As frustration grew, the Social Democrats fell in the polls, and the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats surged ahead, Löfven suddenly reversed policies. Or, as a headline in the UK’s left-leaning Guardian read, “Sweden slams shut its open-door policy towards refugees.” “We simply can’t do any more,” the prime minister explained to the nation. When announcing this policy, Åsa Romson – the environment and previous ceremonial deputy prime minister of Sweden, who was one of the two leaders of the Environmental Party – burst into tears.¹⁶ The Environmentalist Party, which believes in free immigration, is struggling to find its way in the new political landscape that has formed following the immigration crises.¹⁷

Sweden is in a ditch because many politicians, intellectuals and journalists – on both the left and the right – have claimed that refugee immigration is a boon to the country’s economy and that large-scale immigration is the only way of sustaining the welfare state. For long, those who criticized this consensus were accused of being narrow-minded and challenge the findings of research. But of course, serious research has never shown that refugee immigrants boost the Swedish economy. The truth is quite the opposite. In May of 2016 Mats Hammarstedt, one of the leading economists in Sweden who has looked at the issue of migration, wrote a report together with Lina Aldén. The paper was published by the prestigious Swedish Fiscal Policy Council, an independent public body that scrutinizes the economic policies of the government. The findings of the report were quite harsh. After the first year of migration, the average refugee creates a net cost of 190,000 Swedish Kronors (over $23,000). As immigrants slowly find work and start contributing to the system, this net loss is reduced five years later, but still stands at the substantial rate of 120,000 Swedish Kronors per year (over $14,500). If there was ever any doubt, there can be none now: refugee immigration to the generous Nordic welfare state creates substantial costs.

I am sure that Sweden will dig itself out of this recent crisis, at least partially. Some challenges, such as crime and poverty in marginalized neighborhoods, are harder to meet. It comes as no surprise that Sweden has moved toward a much higher degree of economic inequality following the influx of immigrants. Sadly, I would wager that this will continue, as many immigrants are simply struggling to find a job, a house, and a meaningful place in society. Perhaps worst of all is the future of children of immigrant origin. Sure, there are those – like my brother and me – who succeed although growing up in immigrant neighborhoods with welfare support. After all, the Swedish welfare state generously funded our education up to doctorate level. However, Sweden’s school system has gradually moved from a conservative system, where teachers held power, to a very progressive system where students’ liberty is valued highly and teacher authority is frowned upon. This has coincided with a rapid fall in school performance. The PISA global survey has shown that Swedish students’ performance went from being close to the average of developed countries in 2000 to significantly below the average in 2012. No other country has experienced such a steep fall. For example, while 13 percent of students in 2000 were low performers in reading, the share had risen to 23 percent in 2012.18

Researcher Gabriel Heller Sahlgren has shown that a higher share of immigrant students has contributed to the fall, since many come from families where the parents have little education themselves.¹⁹ However, this is only part of the explanation. Most likely the shift toward progressive teaching methods has led to a gradual fall, which has been ongoing for decades.²⁰

The Swedish School Inspectorate has written about the situation of the numerous failing schools where many students of immigrant origin are studying. Its conclusions are quite sad, and clearly show how the lack of teacher authority is destroying the future prospects of many pupils by taking away their chance of getting a good education. A report about Ross Tensta gymnasium, situated in an immigrant neighborhood in Stockholm, reads:

Very severe flaws exist when it comes to safety and a calm study environment. The teachers describe many lessons as chaotic, which the class inspectors of the of the School Inspection can confirm. The School Inspection has observed classes where it is nearly impossible to follow and understand the content of what the teacher is going through. The reason is the inability of the school to deal with students’ lack of respect for their teacher and respect for their own and their classmates’ learning. Teachers often wind up in conflict with students when they tell students to behave, which leads to a situation where some teachers have given up the ambition to create a calm study environment. Teachers describe situations where teachers can be threatened by students when the latter are told to behave, which leads to teachers in some situations not telling students to stop with negative behavior. This has also led to students being offended by other students without teachers intervening.21

School systems without teacher authority where students can harass one another and disturb classes with impunity, where those who wish to study cannot follow the teacher due to a chaotic situation, and where teachers are even afraid of students – haven’t we heard this before? Isn’t this almost exactly the situation that many public schools in marginalized American neighborhoods, where many children come from marginalized minorities, struggle with? In fact, much of the challenges facing Sweden after the influx of large numbers of immigrants are very much like the situations in such American neighborhoods. As in America, the situation can certainly be turned to the better – by preventing and combating crime, boosting job growth, and turning failing schools around. But the challenges are great. When we take the unique Nordic culture of success out of the equation, by looking at the prospects of immigrant communities, suddenly the Swedish system doesn’t seem to be able to solve all social problems. Perhaps this tells us something about the limit of policy, and about the importance of culture for social success?

It remains to be seen if the positive parts of Swedish culture, such as emphasis on individual responsibility, strong social cohesion, and high levels of trust, can be transmitted to the wide immigrant community. I myself believe this to be quite possible with time, at least if the school system, the job market, and crime prevention are all improved. After all, most newcomers to Sweden have a desire to succeed and a genuine interest in the positive parts of Swedish culture (as opposed to the less positive parts, such as the norm of not befriending your neighbors). But it will take time: the Swedish welfare state does not magically transmit social success to all who enter Sweden, Rather, as shown in detail in chapter 9, it is in many ways restricting upward social mobility as compared to the American system. Admirers of Nordic-style social democracy should take a closer look at Sweden’s immigration crisis. Only then will they understand that there is a limit on the abilities of social democracy, even in the Nordics, to create social good.