New figures came out today about the number of residence permits in 2024 and at a press conference, Minister of Migration Johan Forssell was able to state that asylum immigration is now the lowest in 40 years. He then estimated that 6,250 people received residence permits as asylum seekers or relatives last year. Sweden has not had such a low figure since counting began in 1985.
At the same time, the Swedish Migration Agency issued a press release with a completely different message. According to the agency, Sweden granted protection to 15,500 people last year.
Calculates in different ways
The difference is, of course, in the definition. The Swedish Migration Agency includes 11,000 Ukrainians in its figure. Forssell does not.
This becomes important for backward comparability, and the minister’s message about the lowest reception in 40 years becomes instead the lowest in 14 years. According to Forssell’s press secretary, Ukrainian refugees are not counted as asylum seekers because they only receive temporary protection according to the EU’s mass migration directive. Therefore, it is not reasonable to include them. And that reasoning has points because the Ukrainian refugees find it more difficult to stay in Sweden when their temporary residence permit has expired.
But the Swedish Migration Agency does not make that distinction between categories. Protection is protection, in their terminology.
The Minister of Migration, of course, has a political purpose with his presentation. He represents a government that went to the election to change its migration policy and now he wants to show that it has succeeded.
Reduced over several years
So the next question is whether it is the current government’s policy that has led to the decrease in the number of actual asylum applications. The answer to that question is not clear-cut either. Because even if it is true that the number of asylum applications is decreasing, they have been doing so for several years. It has been going on since the previous government introduced border controls, made temporary residence permits the main rule, and made family immigration more difficult. The current government has a long series of tightenings on its agenda, but so far the biggest part lies in investigations.
It is possible to imagine that the signal that Sweden has a government that wants to tighten immigration policy has had an effect that means that fewer people come here. Of course, that signaling policy includes performances such as today’s press conference.