In Sweden, the Land of the Open Door, Anti-Muslim Sentiment Finds a Foothold – NYTimes.com

Good article on the politics of refugees and immigrants in Sweden:

Despite a lackluster economy, Sweden was third behind only Germany and France in the number of people registering for asylum in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. Relative to its population, Sweden received the second-highest share of asylum applications in the European Union after Malta, the institute says.

The Syrian conflict has boosted the number of asylum seekers. Of 81,000 people seeking asylum in Sweden in 2014, roughly half were from Syria, the Swedish Migration Board said.

Opposition to the rising numbers is growing. The far-right, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats had their best showing ever — nearly 13 percent of votes — in elections in September.

The entry of the Sweden Democrats to parliament in 2010 had already opened the door for a previously unthinkable discussion about turning back the country’s policy of taking in foreigners on humanitarian grounds and granting them access to the country’s generous welfare system.

Adrian Groglopo, a professor of social science at the University of Gothenburg, has studied discrimination in Sweden over the past decade. He said that Sweden has long been a racially segregated country where many immigrants live in ghettos and struggle to find jobs, but that the success of the Sweden Democrats has made racism more socially acceptable.

“It is a very difficult time in Sweden,” Dr. Groglopo said. “Now we can talk about things that we weren’t allowed to talk about before. It is a kind of coup d’état.”

In Sweden, the Land of the Open Door, Anti-Muslim Sentiment Finds a Foothold – NYTimes.com.