Editorial: Swedes Are Tired of Generalizations About Immigrants and Integration

Swedish voters want to hear more about how segregation can be solved. Politicians, Dagens Nyheter argues, keep returning to the problems instead.

The editorial points to a 2024 episode involving then Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, now foreign minister, who celebrated people from Iraq, Somalia and Syria leaving Sweden. The gesture, it says, conveyed that people with those backgrounds were not wanted in the country.

Politicians have also grown accustomed to language that slips between immigrants in general and criminals, the editorial says. Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch has used the phrase "keep the scum out," while the Sweden Democrats' youth wing has called for a Swedish version of ICE, the US immigration police force that has deported people and shot several citizens. The editorial warns that harshness is entering the conversation about people who have fled their countries.

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keep the scum out

Voters appear unimpressed. A survey by Järvaveckan Research and Indikator Opinion, cited in DN Debatt, found that more than 60% of Swedes believe politicians generalize too often about people with foreign backgrounds. Three-quarters said politicians focus more on problems than solutions in integration policy, and a majority of Sweden Democrats voters agreed.

The editorial criticizes both government and opposition responses. When the Social Democrats proposed more mixed housing in municipalities to reduce segregation, the Moderates called it "forced mixing," prompting the Social Democrats to tone down the issue. The piece argues that integration has become a political weapon used to frighten voters rather than an arena for competing solutions.

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forced mixing