In 2024, Sweden granted the lowest number of residence permits to asylum-seekers; bringing a big boost to the Right wing’s promise to lower the number of asylum-seekers. They committed to keep bringing down the amount of asylum-seekers to the country in a statement released on January 10th, 2025. Sweden’s far-right and anti-immigration democrats won the Swedish elections in 2022 on the promise of reducing the number of immigrants that were coming into Sweden. They claimed that there was a connection between the number of immigrants and gang-related crimes. They think that reducing the number of immigrants will reduce the amount of gang-related crimes in the country. Since the right wing’s win, they have implemented many policies to limit the attractiveness of Sweden to immigrants. For example, they have made it harder to become a Swedish citizen and gain residence permits. They have also passed legislation that makes it harder for immigrants to bring family members into Sweden, and have slashed the number of immigrants accepted into the country. The Swedish Migration Agency has publicized that 6,250 asylum-seekers and their relatives were given residency permits 2024. This was down 42% compared to 2022 when the Right wing took power, and is the lowest that it has been since 1985. In a news conference, Migration Minister Johan Forssell has restated the need to lower the amount of immigrants that are coming to Sweden. He has also said that “We now have a historically low asylum rate, but that should be put in relation to a number of years when it has been at very high levels.” To put this in perspective, about a fifth of Sweden’s population was born aboard which is double of what it used to be 20 years ago. It had reached a record peak of 86,000 people being given asylum related residency permits in 2016. This happened only a year after the migration crisis. This event had 163,000 people seek asylum in Sweden. Seeing these numbers, Sweden has come to reverse many of their generous immigration policies due to the rise of the Sweden Democrats. They first gained a seat in the Swedish parliament in 2010 ,but gained 20.5% of the vote in the 2022 election. Sweden is starting to ask people to go back to their home countries. They have earmarked around $269,000,000 for repatriation grants. This anti-immigration legislation has been heavily criticized by human rights groups. These human right groups have alleged that the Swedish government is trying to blame all the country’s problems on immigrants. Sweden however does not want to get rid of all immigration. They are carrying out a “paradigm shift” to redirect its focus from getting asylum immigration for labor immigration. They still want to attract foreign experts in the field to strengthen Sweden’s reputation as a research nation. For a country that was such an appealing country for asylum immigration, it does not seem as attractive to foreign experts. Professor Hedlund has claimed that this has risen from a deterioration in Sweden’s quality of education. Sweden has been trending down in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment rankings of students. Immigration has characterized a large part of Sweden’s problems in the 21st century.
Written by Samarth Irani
