In an editorial from Globe & Mail, Margaret Wente writes about the various problems that have come along with the generosity Sweden has toward asylum seeking refugees, and states that, “Sweden is a cautionary tale for anyone who believes that Europe is capable of assimilating the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who are desperately poised to follow in their wake” (Wente).
Wente claims that Sweden’s pro-immigration policies are essential to Sweden, since they pride themselves as being one of the world’s “moral superpowers”, and that any Swede who questions that consensus is seen as xenophobic. Wente lists several issues created by this stance, such as the lack of integration among non-European refugees, that the inequality in …show more content…
These are valid points. However, there is a lot of misleading information in this editorial. The statistics in terms of salary, unemployment, test scores and welfare are true. However, those of murder, rape and robbery are incorrect. A lot of people have gotten the false impression that the majority of those committing crime in Sweden are immigrants. This is most likely due to criminals with foreign heritage getting more attention in the media than Swedish criminals, as well as the fact that the Sweden Democrats in several cases give out false, misleading information about these statistics. In fact, a study made by the National Council for Crime Prevention, shows that Swedish citizens born from two-Swedish born parents were attributed to approximately 60% of offenses registered between 1997 and 2001, and that little has changed since then. Also, Wente does not lay focus on the core problem in this issue, which is not Sweden’s generosity towards immigrants, but rather the fact that Sweden has not laid enough focus on reducing the amount of immigrants to an amount that Sweden economically can afford, as well as improving integration of immigrants living in Sweden. Yes, Sweden’s “fantasy” of integrating immigrants has not been working, but this is because really not much has been done to stop the segregation of immigrants in Sweden. Europe is capable of integrating the many refugees immigrating through Europe. However, the union has to find a solution that allows each country to contribute to these issues in a fashion that supports their own