European Country Taking Conservative Approach to Immigration, Security

STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Though a fraction of the size, Sweden has faced issues similar to America’s in recent years, including mass immigration and a wave of violent crime.  

“In some parts of Sweden, there are routine bombings. There are gang attacks and assassinations on rival groups,” said Wilson Beaver, a senior policy adviser for defense budgeting and NATO policy at The Heritage Foundation.  

While both Sweden and the U.S. place significant focus on preparing for threats from outside their respective borders, Sweden, like the U.S., has taken measures to improve domestic safety, including further restricting immigration.  

“The deputy prime minister of Sweden has really taken a very tough stance” on mass migration into Sweden, Beaver told The Daily Signal during an interview outside Sweden’s Royal Palace. Ebba Busch, who serves as deputy prime minister and is a part of Sweden’s center-right Christian Democrats party, has said that migrants who don’t assimilate to Swedish culture can return to their home countries.  

Outside of an influx of Ukrainians fleeing the war between Russia and Ukraine, the largest percentage of immigrant to Sweden in recent years have been from Middle Eastern countries, such as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  

Amid a wave of gang violence, the Swedish parliament, which leans conservative following the 2022 elections, took steps to discourage immigration, such as making it harder to gain a residence permit. Sweden has also begun accepting fewer asylum-seekers. In 2024, Sweden granted the lowest number of resident permits to asylum-seekers on record.  

“Sweden is redirecting its focus from being a country for asylum immigration to now being a country for labor immigration,” according to the Swedish government.  

Similarly to Sweden, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the U.S. has stopped paroling illegal aliens into the U.S. and is conducting operations across the country to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens. The Trump administration is also working to crackdown on crime across the U.S. and has deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C.

Sweden’s government is also taking aggressive action to increase defense spending and further security on the world stage.  

Despite being the newest NATO member, Sweden is rapidly becoming one of the largest defense spenders and plans to be spending 3.5% of its gross domestic product on defense by 2030.  

Sweden’s increased defense spending is not only critical because of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, but also because the U.S. is expected to reduce the number of troops it has in Europe in order to increase military presence in the Indo-Pacific due to the threat of China.  

The U.S. is working with “allies, countries like Sweden, to ensure that any American capability that is reduced is replaced by a new European capability,” Beaver said.  

With the exception of Spain, NATO counties have agreed to spend 3.5% of their GDP on defense, and an additional 1.5% on civil preparedness, protection of infrastructure, and the like, by 2035.   

Beaver said he is seeking a shift across Europe as more and more NATO countries recognize the need to take responsibility for European security and not rely on America.  

Europe, Beaver said, can anticipate a more “responsible and secure environment” as they “depend a little bit less on the American security umbrella and think a little bit more about how to do things on their own again.”  

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