Read more
Blog, Public Attitudes
Communication in Migration: What is happening to children and young people?
Stories shape how we see the world, and for children and young migrants in Europe, the stories being told—or not told—have profound implications. These young people face unique challenges, yet their experiences are often...
In Sweden, a controversial proposal for a duty to report has sparked heated debates about balancing rights and migration control. While scaled back to exempt some professions, the policy raises critical questions: how might these measures circumscribe the fundamental rights that irregular migrants have in Sweden, and what policies do people actually support? These are the questions the Protecting Irregular Migrants in Europe (PRIME) project seeks to answer, and in this blog post, we explore Sweden’s shifting approach, the public’s attitudes toward irregular migration policies, and what this means for balancing rights and enforcement across Europe.
Sweden’s proposed duty to report
The question of how to address irregular migration has become a key issue within the EU context. The new Migration Pact, for example, stipulates the explicit goal of “preventing irregular migration”. Similar tendencies can be seen in other parts of the world as well, not at least in the United States where the promise of deporting “illegal immigrants” played a prominent role in Donald Trump’s successful campaign for a return to the White House.
A less noticed but very significant “tough on irregular migration” trajectory is currently under way in Sweden. While historically regarded as a comparatively open and enabling country both in terms of admission policies and immigrants’ rights, Sweden has recently seen a restrictive ‘paradigm shift’ in migration policy under a coalition of centre-right parties that is supported by the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. One of the more controversial proposals of the current government is a reporting obligation, requiring municipalities and public authorities to inform the Migration Agency and the Police when they come into contact with persons who have stayed in Sweden without a permit.
Such reporting obligations are, at their core, in conflict with the explicit legal rights of irregular migrants in Sweden, including access to emergency health care and compulsory education for children. The plans of the government have, accordingly, been widely criticized for violating fundamental human rights, for fueling growing discrimination and racism, and for undermining the core principles and values underpinning Swedish public administration and the welfare state.
The widespread criticism from affected professional groups, civil organizations, and the political opposition – such as through the petition “Vi anger inte” (“We do not report”) – was mirrored in the report of a public inquiry on the topic that recently came to a close. This inquiry concluded that many professional sectors, including healthcare and school staff, should be exempted from the reporting duty.
The scaled-back proposal for measures to strengthen ‘immigration control’ in the inquiry, including the aforementioned exemptions from a reporting duty, has been described as a victory for the critical mobilization against the proposal and for the more liberal factions within the government coalition. It is important to note, however, that the report of the inquiry also includes several measures aimed at reinforcing ‘internal border controls’. These measures include expanded police powers to conduct selective checks on individuals, the ability to take fingerprints from children as young as six years old, and the authority to seize and examine electronic communication devices. It is further important to emphasize that the report agrees with the government’s call for reporting obligations as such. Public sector employees in the Social Insurance Service and the Tax Agency, for example, are not exempt.
Even though the proposal for a reporting duty in Sweden was ultimately scaled back, many fear that “the damage is already done.” The stricter measures to detect and enforce actions against irregular migrants, combined with the clear intentions to restrict their access to social rights, are likely to discourage undocumented individuals from seeking help and support from public authorities, including healthcare and education. The trust is damaged.
A controversial middle way
This example from Sweden manifests a fundamental tension in any government policy response regarding irregular migrants: balancing the moral duty to protect fundamental human rights within a country’s borders against the need for effective migration control. The measures proposed by the Swedish government could, in principle, be considered a way to reconcile the two. It upholds the right to, e.g., emergency health care, while also ensuring the exchange of information between public agencies for the effective detection of migrants lacking a regular legal status. However, this combination also creates an almost treacherous conundrum where irregular migrants are promised rights on paper that they cannot exercise in practice without risking detection.
This dilemma between fundamental rights and migration control is at the core of the EU Horizon project PRIME. As part of this project, we study how the public perceives various policy proposals regarding the rights of irregular migrants. We are systematically investigating whether fundamental social and economic rights of migrants are supported more (or less) if they are combined with migration control measures such as reporting obligations.
It is crucial to conduct this kind of research and deepen our understanding of public attitudes, amid intensifying policy debates on migration across Europe, where tougher migration control measures are often justified as reflecting “what the people want” or criticized for undermining trust in public institutions (as seen above). This is especially relevant in a context where European societies grapple with balancing the protection of fundamental rights against rising anti-immigrant sentiments.
So, what policies vis-à-vis irregular migrants do people want?
Previous research on migration attitudes has revealed that public opinion is not uniformly opposed to immigration. Instead, attitudes vary depending on the perceived cultural and economic impact of different immigrant groups, as well as the influence of humanitarian norms grounded in universal rights. In this context, the case of irregular migrants emerges as a particularly compelling test case. On one hand, irregular migrants, due to their lack of legal status, pose a challenge to states’ sovereign right and commitment to control immigration. On the other hand, the well-documented exploitation and vulnerability faced by irregular migrants calls for states’ responsibility to uphold the fundamental rights of all individuals within their borders. We can therefore expect individuals to experience internal conflict between the need to uphold fundamental rights for all within a state’s borders and concerns about enforcing rules and laws.
Our research aims to fill this gap by exploring public attitudes to policy proposals with a particular focus on irregular migrants. To achieve this, we use a series of conjoint survey experiments in Austria, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK, where respondents evaluate various hypothetical policy packages featuring attributes such as access to regularization, social rights, and enforcement measures like reporting duties. This approach enables us to pinpoint how specific policy elements shape overall public support. By linking these preferences to respondents’ personal characteristics and attitudes on other issues, we seek to gain a deeper understanding of the determining factors behind public attitudes vis-à-vis irregular migrants.
Insights from our survey will provide valuable perspectives on public attitudes to help inform what is happening in countries like Sweden as they try to balance rights and enforcement in policies vis-à-vis irregular migrants. We hope our findings could help chart a path for reconciling these tensions in ways that preserve public trust and uphold democratic principles.
A working paper on the public preferences for policies vis-à-vis irregular migrants in Europe, part of the PRIME project, is set to be published in early 2025. Sign up for the PRIME Policy Hub to be notified of their release.
Anton Ahlén and Lutz Gschwind both work as researchers at the Department of Government at Uppsala University and are involved in the PRIME project.
The PRIME project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.