President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Md., Friday, Feb. 24, 2017.Associated Press/Evan VucciPresident Donald Trump on Friday doubled down on his argument that Sweden's refugee and immigration policies were causing a crime wave, during his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
During the speech, he noted he "took a lot of heat on Sweden" the last time he had made similar remarks, and he urged the public to again "take a look at what's happening" in the Scandinavian country.
Sweden had first been pulled into America's ongoing debate over refugee resettlement last weekend after Trump implied that an ominous incident had occurred "last night in Sweden" as a result of the country's generous immigration policies.
Trump critics and Swedes themselves had been quick to rebut his statements, noting that no particular incident had occurred last Friday night — although Trump later clarified that he was alluding to a Fox News segment claiming that a wave of migrant-related crime and violence had swept Sweden.
"Give the public a break - The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!" Trump tweeted on Monday.
The comments ricocheted on social media, whipping up both condemnation and praise for Sweden's generous refugee-resettlement and immigration policies and stirring debate about the consequences of allowing so many newcomers to flow into the country over a short period.
Sweden took in a record 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015 — the second-most per capita among European countries — although that number dropped to 29,000 in 2016 after the country introduced restrictions.
But Trump's comments on Saturday — and the comments in the Fox News segment — weren't the first criticisms leveled against Sweden's massive intake of refugees.
Here are some of the issues and facts:
Doubt over the Fox News segment
Fox News' Tucker Carlson interviewing the filmmaker Ami Horowitz.YouTube/Fox News
One of the first issues that arose was the veracity of the information Trump was using to comment on the country. As critics were quick to point out, Trump had based his remarks on a Fox News interview between Tucker Carlson and the filmmaker Ami Horowitz, not on his daily intelligence briefings.
Two police officers Horowitz had interviewed said their remarks about violence in the country had been taken out of context and selectively edited. They said they were commenting on areas with high crime rates and not on immigration or refugees.
"We don't stand behind it. It shocked us. He has edited the answers," one of the officers, Anders Göranzon, told The Washington Post of Horowitz. "We were answering completely different questions in the interview. This is bad journalism."
Horowitz later told The Guardian that he denied having misled the officers, saying he was "pretty sure" he had informed them of the segment's content.
"This is part of the problem that Sweden has, and the officers are probably under a lot of pressure because of what they said," Horowitz told The Guardian. "It's difficult in that environment to stand up to it, so I feel sorry for them."
Migrants and crime in Sweden
According to local media, several cars were set on fire during a riot in Rinkeby, Sweden, outside Stockholm, on February 20.TT News Agency via Reuters
According to data and Swedish criminologists, there is no evidence of a massive crime wave driven by refugees and immigrants.
The 2016 Swedish Crime Survey showed a small uptick in crime in 2015, with 13.3% of nearly 12,000 respondents reporting they had been exposed to one or more offenses, including assault, threats, sexual offenses, robbery, fraud, or harassment.
But although the number is up from 11.3% in 2014, the survey says the numbers are around the same level as they were in 2005, well before Sweden's refugee influx began.
It's difficult to ascertain which demographics are most responsible for any small increases in crime — the Swedish government has refused to keep official data on criminals' races or nationalities.
But an analysis of crime statistics conducted by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter found that between October 2015 and January 2016, just 1% of more than 500,000 incidents in which police were called involved refugees.
Combined with Sweden's relatively low crime rate, the statistics cast doubt on Horowitz's suggestion that refugees have driven a "surge" in crime.
Rather, individual instances of refugee- or immigrant-related crime appear to bolster the idea that there is a "surge."
Riots erupted on Monday night in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in Rinkeby, outside Stockholm. After police entered the neighborhood to arrest a suspect, residents threw rocks at police, vandalized storefronts, looted, and set multiple cars on fire, according to police. The riots are still being investigated, and one person was arrested after throwing rocks, The Washington Post reported.
Rape and sexual offenses
People carrying a banner take part in a Women's March in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 21.TT News Agency via Reuters
Rape and sex crimes, in particular, have drawn the attention of critics of lenient refugee-resettlement and immigration policies. During his Fox News interview, Horowitz said Sweden's open-door policy had resulted in an "absolute surge" in gun violence and rape cases, claiming that the Swedish government had "gone out of its way to cover up some of these crimes."
Yet the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention documented an 11% decrease in sex offenses reported to police between 2014 and 2015. In 2015, 18,100 sex offenses were reported, 5,920 of which were classified as rape. That represents a 12% decrease in reported rapes from 2014.
While reported rape offenses have risen since 2006, the council attributes this rise partly to legislation introduced in 2005 and 2013, both of which broadened the type of acts that could be classified as rape.
Adjusting to Sweden's mass refugee intake
Police organize a line of refugees on a stairway leading to trains arriving from Denmark at a station outside Malmo, Sweden, in November 2015.Reuters/Johan Nilsson
Despite the ridicule with which many Swedes responded to Trump's comments on Saturday, the country has struggled at times with the number of newcomers it attempts to integrate.
Employment is perhaps the most prominent issue. While 5% of native-born Swedes ages 15 to 74 are jobless, foreign-born workers are three times as likely to lack employment, according to The Economist.
The Migration Policy Institute has found that newcomers' employment rates tend to improve over time, and their initial struggles are often due to the country's high minimum wages and lack of available low-skilled jobs. But some have argued that Sweden's high number of jobless immigrants has become unavoidable.
"Sweden, definitely, like other countries, [faces] challenges when it comes to integration of immigrants into Swedish society, with lower levels of employment, tendencies of exclusion, and also crime-related problems," Henrik Selin, director of intercultural dialogue at the Swedish Institute, told The Washington Post.
