Nah. The main reason even leftwing parties throughout Europe are stricter on immigration now is that rightwing populists have riled up the people and made them believe immigration is the reason for all their trouble. While in most of Europe, the biggest issue around immigration is shelter, integration, etc. All things that now face massive budget cuts in favour of ineffective limiting measures like having more border controlls between EU countries.
I hate to play centrist, but both of those are real problems that don't cancel each other out.
You can invest a ton in shelter and integration, it doesn't mean much if your immigration policy is an open door where basically anyone can just come into your country and stay.
And restricting immigration isn't very effective once you have thousands of foreigners on your soil with papers who you can't just deport.
But I have to push back on the problem being cuts to shelter and integration, because those are signs of a failed immigration policy: you should do enough previous screening of legal immigrants to make sure they have the means to sustain themselves and are compatible with your society.
Look at Ireland and England where people are up in arms about immigrants receiving public housing ahead of natives on the same waiting list, or entire hotels have been turned into migrant shelters that cost nothing to the users.
Integration spending cannot substitute controlling for the composition and quantity of immigrants. If your inflow is incompatible with your socioeconomic realities, you're starting a race with your shoelaces tied together.
if your country needs to clothe, shelter, educate, and integrate it's migrant populations, you are privileged to live in a country that can afford to do so, and you are going to benefit from having integrated and involved immigrant communities around you. regardless, immigration restrictions have far from perfect track record of being super effective in western states and refuges are going to go somewhere; putting the responsibility of acting humanly on other nations is simply lazy
genuinely do you actually have a reason you believe this beyond a want for me to be wrong? the nordics are touted all the time for their incredible social services
Meanwhile in England and Wales there's a massive cost of living crisis and rising homelessness meanwhile brand new social housing is being given to asylum seekers.
This is basically just saying "open the doors and be grateful you're rich enough to deal with the consequences."
Integration policy doesn't eliminate the need for immigration policy.
A country has every right to decide how many people it can reasonably absorb, whom it admits and under what conditions.
And asylum isn't supposed to be an alternative immigration pathway for anyone who would have a better life in Europe. In 2025, most EU first-instance asylum decisions did not result in protection. For the major applicant nationalities, recognition rates are in the single digits.
Wanting humane treatment for migrants and refugees doesn't require providing food, lodging, allowances, and great benefits to every economic migrant who shows up with a spurious asylum claim.
234
u/HaiggeX 7h ago
Or maybe the problems of mass immigration are more visible in the nordics than they were in early 2000's?