Sweden proves that there is such a thing as being too nice

[barryqwalsh]

So it is quite a big deal when a nice country like Sweden decides, completely of its own accord, to temporarily close its borders to immigrants.

Yet that is precisely what Sweden has done, from midday today, with the introduction of temporary border checks, for what they say is an initial 10 days, to control the flow of Syrian and other migrants into the country.


If even Sweden is closing its borders to refugees, this really could be the end for mass immigration

 

[DGS49]

The lunatics are running the asylum, both here and in Europe.

Is it not axiomatic that any Sovereign Nation has an absolute right to decide who gets to come in and live there? Especially when taking up residence implies access to a wonderful cornucopia of expensive financial and in-kind benefits?

PLEASE, someone provide me with some logical principle on which Sweden can be criticized for limiting the immigration of strangers with no prior connection to that country.

 

[barryqwalsh]

Swedes have long seen their country as a humanitarian superpower – one that may avoid military conflict, but stands in the front line of helping the world’s dispossessed. In the late Sixties, it welcomed Eastern Europeans who fled the Soviets, my wife’s parents among them. They were given everything by this wonderful country – food, accommodation, lessons in Swedish and even help to make sure their Stockholm-born daughters could still speak Czech. My family is one of many with reason to be grateful for Sweden’s habit of treating its openness as an article of faith.

But this became the problem. When the migration situation changed, Swedish policy did not. The numbers now arriving were never envisaged: this year alone, almost 200,000 are expected to arrive in this sparsely populated country. Adjust for population size, and it’s like Britain finding space for a refugee population the size of Birmingham each year. Sweden’s immigration agency has already run out of beds, and has been accommodating asylum-seekers at its head office.


How Sweden, the most open country in the world, was overwhelmed by migrants