Swedes Grow Weary of Refugees Amid Terror Threats, Crime, Fraud

Today, 52 percent of Swedes support the idea of reducing the number of refugees taken in, a new survey from the SOM Institute at the University of Gothenburg indicated. This marks a significant increase compared with the previous surveys. In 2015, 40 percent of Swedes were in favor of curtailing immigration, the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet reported.

Unsurprisingly, the attitude towards the immigrants was most negative among right-wing voters. A total of 96 percent of Sweden Democrats voters were found to be in favor of receiving fewer immigrants, compared with 62 percent of Conservative voters. Even among Social Democratic voters, the number of immigration opponents rose to 42 percent. Among Left and Green voters, however, only 13 percent would like to receive fewer refugees.

"To receive fewer refugees has now been launched as an official policy by the Swedish government, with broad anchoring in the parliament," Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, a professor of political science, said, suggesting it was hardly surprising that the people follow suit.

Swedes' negative view of immigrants could have been influenced by the recent truck attack in Stockholm, which was carried out by 39-year-old Uzbek Rakhmat Akilov, who was slated for deportation, but managed to evade the authorities for several months.

Between 30-50 percent of asylum seekers register false personal data with authorities in Sweden, the Swedish Tax Agency reported earlier this month. Among other things, this is done to maximize the bonuses from the Swedish welfare system. Additionally, fake personal data contributes to clandestine criminal activity. The exact extent of it remains unknown, because different authorities don't necessarily share their data with each other. Misspellings of foreign names were also reported as a problem.

"For instance, if I have three identities, I can start a company and obtain a new startup allowance, then I can be report myself unemployed or get a sickness benefit, and finally I can borrow money with my third identity," Marie Mattsson Vangekrantz of the Swedish Tax Agency told the Swedish TV-channel TV4.

Another problem commonly associated with immigration, despite the Swedish government's and the media's incessant attempts to highlight the good points, is crime, especially in numerous blighted areas in and around Sweden's largest cities, such as Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. The surge in violent crime in Malmö has recently became a problem for neighboring Denmark, which claims that the soaring crime rate in Sweden is having an effect on its own society. Danish Conservative Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen linked the surge with Sweden's immigration policy, which arguably led to the emergence of ghettoes.

"The present situation has many reasons, the immigration policy being one of them," Søren Pape Poulsen said, as quoted by the Swedish web portal Corren, urging Sweden to "buckle up."

The deteriorating crime situation has affected Swedish women, who find themselves the victims of harassment and sexual abuse. A recent survey by Statistics Sweden indicated that almost every fourth Swedish women refrained from going out in the evening at some point during the past year for fear of being attacked or robbed. Additionally, three percent of the Swedish population aged 16 and over have been exposed to violence at some time in the past 12 months.

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