ESKILSTUNA, SWEDEN — The middle-aged mover who collected an aging sofa from the family home my wife and her siblings are inheriting had a question for the Swedish people and the government in general.
“When we go, who will do these jobs?”
It’s a question being heard in many of the world’s developed countries today, including the United States.
“When we go, who will do these jobs?”
It’s a question being heard in many of the world’s developed countries today, including the United States.
According to the United Nations, the world is in the midst of a huge migratory flux. At the end of 2024, 123.2 million people had been forced out of their homes, either through wars, general violence, human rights violations, persecutions or “events seriously disturbing public order.”
Of those, 42.7 million were refugees, and 8.4 million were seeking asylum.
The UN said more than 1 of every 67 people in the world today has been forced to flee. Many more leave out of a desire to find a better life, including greater economic prosperity.
But the world is becoming increasingly cold toward their plight. Instead, right-wing political movements have come to power, followed by dramatic shifts in public policies, even in places you might not suspect.
Ten years ago, when faced with a dramatic increase in border crossings, then-German chancellor Angela Merkel publicly said, “wir schaffen das,” or “We can do it.” European leaders were set on accepting as many asylum seekers as possible.
But she soon had to shift gears and impose controls. The statement also cost her politically, as the BBC’s Fergal Keane reported this week.
Now, an opposite approach has spread over Europe.
“Hungary immediately returns people who arrive at the border without permission to enter,” Keane wrote. “They can only apply for asylum in the Serbian capital Belgrade, or in Kyiv in war battered Ukraine.”
England, Ireland, Denmark and, yes, Sweden have made it tougher on immigrants to enter. Sweden has announced that, beginning next year, it will pay any immigrant about $34,000 to return to his or her land of origin, dramatically increasing the amount it had been offering.
The man who moved our sofa, who didn’t provide his name, isn’t interested in the money, but he made it clear to me he is planning to return to Syria after 14 years in Sweden. He believes the recent ouster of Bashar al-Assad, the long-time dictator of that country, has made living conditions more tolerable for him, his wife and his three children, the oldest of which is 16. He believes this even though, as he told me, his oldest is doing well in school and wants to become a doctor, which seems a more likely path in Sweden than in Syria, especially for a young person raised in Sweden.
But the mover said he was a licensed electrician in Syria, and Sweden has onerous requirements for becoming licensed there. He pointed to his moving van, which is all electric. “I own that,” said. He could sell it and his other two cars and have plenty of money for the trip home. He doesn’t like to move furniture, even though it has made him good money. He is beginning to think Sweden doesn’t want him there.
Writing about immigration for the New York Times, columnist Lydia Polgreen quoted a Swedish lawmaker from the right-wing Sweden Democrats Party saying immigrants from places such as Iraq, Somalia (and perhaps Syria) “don’t integrate in one or two or even three generations.”
“We have no idea how many generations it’s going to take before people from Somalia become fully integrated.”
Polgreen takes exception to that, citing empirical evidence showing all immigrants follow the same basic pattern of eventual assimilation.
“But as is so often the case, perception is quite immune to empirical evidence,” she wrote.
A few days after returning to Utah, my wife and I took delivery of some new appliances. The man in charge of the delivery truck said he was from Venezuela, having escaped hardships to come to the United States three years ago.
Unlike the mover in Sweden, he had no intention of moving back, but he acknowledged he had a relative who had been picked up by ICE, despite being here legally.
He didn’t pose the question, but he might have. If he were gone, who would do these jobs?
Of those, 42.7 million were refugees, and 8.4 million were seeking asylum.
The UN said more than 1 of every 67 people in the world today has been forced to flee. Many more leave out of a desire to find a better life, including greater economic prosperity.
But the world is becoming increasingly cold toward their plight. Instead, right-wing political movements have come to power, followed by dramatic shifts in public policies, even in places you might not suspect.
Ten years ago, when faced with a dramatic increase in border crossings, then-German chancellor Angela Merkel publicly said, “wir schaffen das,” or “We can do it.” European leaders were set on accepting as many asylum seekers as possible.
But she soon had to shift gears and impose controls. The statement also cost her politically, as the BBC’s Fergal Keane reported this week.
Now, an opposite approach has spread over Europe.
“Hungary immediately returns people who arrive at the border without permission to enter,” Keane wrote. “They can only apply for asylum in the Serbian capital Belgrade, or in Kyiv in war battered Ukraine.”
England, Ireland, Denmark and, yes, Sweden have made it tougher on immigrants to enter. Sweden has announced that, beginning next year, it will pay any immigrant about $34,000 to return to his or her land of origin, dramatically increasing the amount it had been offering.
The man who moved our sofa, who didn’t provide his name, isn’t interested in the money, but he made it clear to me he is planning to return to Syria after 14 years in Sweden. He believes the recent ouster of Bashar al-Assad, the long-time dictator of that country, has made living conditions more tolerable for him, his wife and his three children, the oldest of which is 16. He believes this even though, as he told me, his oldest is doing well in school and wants to become a doctor, which seems a more likely path in Sweden than in Syria, especially for a young person raised in Sweden.
But the mover said he was a licensed electrician in Syria, and Sweden has onerous requirements for becoming licensed there. He pointed to his moving van, which is all electric. “I own that,” said. He could sell it and his other two cars and have plenty of money for the trip home. He doesn’t like to move furniture, even though it has made him good money. He is beginning to think Sweden doesn’t want him there.
Writing about immigration for the New York Times, columnist Lydia Polgreen quoted a Swedish lawmaker from the right-wing Sweden Democrats Party saying immigrants from places such as Iraq, Somalia (and perhaps Syria) “don’t integrate in one or two or even three generations.”
“We have no idea how many generations it’s going to take before people from Somalia become fully integrated.”
Polgreen takes exception to that, citing empirical evidence showing all immigrants follow the same basic pattern of eventual assimilation.
“But as is so often the case, perception is quite immune to empirical evidence,” she wrote.
A few days after returning to Utah, my wife and I took delivery of some new appliances. The man in charge of the delivery truck said he was from Venezuela, having escaped hardships to come to the United States three years ago.
Unlike the mover in Sweden, he had no intention of moving back, but he acknowledged he had a relative who had been picked up by ICE, despite being here legally.
He didn’t pose the question, but he might have. If he were gone, who would do these jobs?
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