Are Open Borders Feasible? Sweden, the EU and the Migration Crisis

One of the most important debates in the field of international migration involves the right to immigrate, the nature of government restrictions and the feasibility of open borders. Few current developments embody this debate as the European refugee crisis of 2015-2016. While Countries reacted to the crisis in a more or less restrictive fashion, Sweden opened its borders, allocated resources to integrate the arriving asylum seekers, and set up a fast track to citizenship in a way that goes beyond what advocates of open borders support (Brenann, 2014). Swedish migration policy established in practice what Oberman (2016), Carens (2015) and others call a human right to immigrate, with all its direct and background governmental duties. However, since late 2015 Sweden has implemented a U-turn in its policy, reinstating its border controls and returning to a more restrictive approach (Miller, 2016). This paper seeks to explain which events, features and historical reasons lead Sweden to opt for more open or restrictive migration and integration policies, which are the political and social costs of these options, the various dimensions of the role the European Union has played, what are the consequences of these decisions for the Swedish approach to immigration and, more broadly, what is its contribution to the international migration management debate.