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Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

nytimes.com

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Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#21

Post by adventured »

alkonaut wrote: post #2

It's pretty natural to argue that there are "no limits" to the number of refugees/asylum seekers we can accept. After all we are obliged by international conventions to process asylum applications for people on our doorstep. A country that argues that their borders are closed, or that only X thousand refugees will be allowed to seek asylum, are most likely breaching international conventions, or never signed them in…

The US has absorbed tens of millions of immigrants since 1980 (ten million from Mexico alone since then). While it's a perfectly fine point you're making regarding Syrian refugees, that has to rationally be balanced in the context of the vast scale of immigration the US is already handling.

By comparison, Sweden's total population has increased by less than two million in 50 years. The US takes in that many legal immigrants every two years.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#22

Post by orf »

msvan wrote: post #11
orf wrote: post #8

This all stems from the Iraq war. We get dragged into it by the USA, and now we have to house the hundreds of thousands eventually displaced by that illegal catastrophe as well as tighten our borders against bombing. And it's going to tear Europe apart, all while the west still funnel money into Saudi Arabia (and from there into ISIS). Great. Fuck America. Edit: Rather than patriotically downvoting me it would be coo…

Let's not be so quick to cast judgment on the US. Europe's colonial history is pretty unflattering as well, and also plays a big part in the middle eastern mess. It's certainly not all about the Iraq war.

Yeah, we made some terrible choices and did some terrible things, but those were very different times. The US led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (plus it's history of funding all the wrong people to fight the soviets) has completely destabilized the region for the foreseeable future. Not 100 years go, now.

And as a result Europe, who's people never supported either US invasion, is dealing with the mess (which threatens to destroy the very fabric of the EU), while the USA sits out of harms way across the Atlantic and shouts about how it's not letting in any refugees.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#23

Post by jfaucett »

This is what happens when you just let anyone with an asylum claim into your country and don't have a plan for how to handle the actual numbers of people.

What ticks me off the most is that at least the german gov't has known about this problem since 2012 (https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Downloads/Infothek...) and have sat around doing nothing to prepare. We could have actually had a system in place to integrate these people, get them jobs, quickly process those with/without ligitimate claims, etc, but no.

I live in germany and listen to a lot of sveriges radio news, so I feel I have a pretty good view of how things are in sweden and germany right now. In sweden, its so bad some refugees had to sleep outside a couple of days ago, and this is with many already sleeping inside immigrations offices, or buses driving in to let them sleep in, etc. Due to germanys size and relative economic prosperty I think it will take significantly longer to weigh as heavily on the system, but estimated costs for this year for 800k refugees were about 6 billion a while back (roughly 1/6 of anual Hartz IV costs) http://www.br.de/nachrichten/fluechtlinge-asylbewerber-koste....

Bottom line, if there is not an EU wide solution to this problem it will break Germany and Sweden unless they change policy - for sweden it needs to be ASAP. Since A) there is no end of warfare and legitimate asylum claims in sight in the near east and africa which means the current influx will undoubtedly continue over the next decade B) Integration will be near impossible with these kinds of numbers producing even more socio-economic problems which you'd think germany would have learned from with its turkish workers problems ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_in_Germany#Integration_i...) ...

Practicaly speaking, it doesn't look like any other eu countries want to buckle up and take the economic weight of all these people who will burden their welfare systems so basically Germany and Sweden will be forced to change policy, its just a question of how bad the situation gets before they enact a change in policy.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#24

Post by alkonaut »

adventured wrote: post #21
alkonaut wrote: post #2

It's pretty natural to argue that there are "no limits" to the number of refugees/asylum seekers we can accept. After all we are obliged by international conventions to process asylum applications for people on our doorstep. A country that argues that their borders are closed, or that only X thousand refugees will be allowed to seek asylum, are most likely breaching international conventions, or never signed them in…

The US has absorbed tens of millions of immigrants since 1980 (ten million from Mexico alone since then). While it's a perfectly fine point you're making regarding Syrian refugees, that has to rationally be balanced in the context of the vast scale of immigration the US is already handling. By comparison, Sweden's total population has increased by less than two million in 50 years. The US takes in that many legal imm…

I think we need to compare at the correct scales: At the current rate Sweden is seeing 1 refugee per 1000 inhabitants per week. To put that in US terms would be 1.5 million per month.

Also I'm only talking about refugees, not immigration in general. Sweden has a lot of immigration from neighboring countries, but that doesn't really strain the system.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#25

Post by tomp »

Numberwang wrote: post #20
throwaway2209 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I have read it used to be very difficult to have a reasonable debate about restrictions without being labeled as a right wing racist. It seems to me that when moderates didn't dare to speak in public, the voters had only one choice. They may not agree with everything, but when it is the only major party that wants restrictions they have no choice.

Had the Sweden Democrats not existed the proper parties would have had the full spectrum of positions to chose from. By being so reprehensible the Sweden Democrats gave the other parties no choice but to dismiss them entirely.

I'm not sure your position is logically sound. The Sweden Democrats used not to exist once, and evidently the existing political parties didn't cater to the right-wing spectrum of the popultion, which is why an ultra-right-wing party has been able to emerge.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#26

Post by tomp »

jfaucett wrote: post #23

This is what happens when you just let anyone with an asylum claim into your country and don't have a plan for how to handle the actual numbers of people. What ticks me off the most is that at least the german gov't has known about this problem since 2012 ( https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Downloads/Infothek... ) and have sat around doing nothing to prepare. We could have actually had a system in place to in…

> Bottom line, if there is not an EU wide solution to this problem it will break Germany and Sweden unless they change policy

I think it's plausibly that by pursuing their open-door policies, Germany and Sweeden also encouraged the flow of immigrants into the EU. Assuming this is true, isn't it a bit unfair now to unload that burden to other EU countries that were more realistic from the start? Basically, Germany and Sweden were to only ones to accumulate moral capital, but now they expect other countries to share the financial burden.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#27

Post by tomp »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #6

The thing is that EU countries would be fine if they all imposed "no limits". But selfishness has lead most EU countries to simply reject taking migrants entirely, leaving the few that do have "no limits" overwhelmed.

The alternative explanation is, selfishness has led Sweden and Germany to proclaim their "no limits" policies in order to accumulate "moral capital". This resulted in a huge increase in the flow of asylium seekers, but now these countries want the rest of the EU to share the burden of their failed policies.

Re: Sweden's Self-Inflicted Nightmare

#28

Post by xlm1717 »

adventured wrote: post #21
alkonaut wrote: post #2

It's pretty natural to argue that there are "no limits" to the number of refugees/asylum seekers we can accept. After all we are obliged by international conventions to process asylum applications for people on our doorstep. A country that argues that their borders are closed, or that only X thousand refugees will be allowed to seek asylum, are most likely breaching international conventions, or never signed them in…

The US has absorbed tens of millions of immigrants since 1980 (ten million from Mexico alone since then). While it's a perfectly fine point you're making regarding Syrian refugees, that has to rationally be balanced in the context of the vast scale of immigration the US is already handling. By comparison, Sweden's total population has increased by less than two million in 50 years. The US takes in that many legal imm…

The Stockholm metropolitan area is home to 20% of the Swedish population. About 15% of Sweden lies north of the Arctic circle, with the majority of land in Sweden covered in forest.

The US, in comparison, has a MUCH greater capacity to take in immigrants. The US as almost as many people in one city as Sweden has in the entire country.

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