Here in Sweden, behind every deportation decision, every surveillance proposition, every rejected asylum case, is a deeper ideology: that human worth is conditional. That rights must be earned. That survival is not guaranteed.
This is the system I've come to know, not just as a jurist, but as a human being living and working inside it. And what I've seen is not justice. It is a slow, quiet violence cloaked in legal formalities.
This piece is a follow-up to Sweden on Trial: Climate Betrayal, Racism, and the Silence of Complicity — an article that traced how Sweden's rightward shift and neoliberal consensus have hollowed out the meaning of justice, citizenship, and solidarity. That piece examined how environmental collapse, racism, and legal repression are not separate crises, but symptoms of the same system. This piece continues that investigation — through the courtroom.
It also owes a debt to Neal Haddaway's essential work exposing how global systems and structural forces — from structural adjustment programs to food imperialism — shape migration patterns by design, not accident. His recent investigations uncovered how EU trade policies, climate devastation, and resource extraction leave Moroccan families with no choice but to migrate, crossing hostile borders in search of survival.
In Sweden, I see a different face of the same system: one that operates not through scorched fields or broken crops, but through courtrooms, legal codes, and polite denials. The machinery looks cleaner. But the logic is the same, a globally integrated economy that extracts, exploits, and discards, and a legal system that punishes those it has already failed.
It tells people to follow the rules, but rewrites those rules in real time. It upholds justice in theory, while gatekeeping access in practice. It promises integration, while selling off the institutions that once made it possible.
Citizenship as Exclusion — Us vs Them
Climate change, armed conflict, and economic collapse are displacing millions, and causing conflicts and war. The people arriving at our borders are not threats. They are the logical, foreseeable outcome of a world economy that extracts and expels.
Yet instead of questioning the global order that produced this mass displacement, we double down on the fantasy of fortress nations. We draw new lines in the sand. We pass harsher laws. We ask, again and again, who "deserves" to be here: when the real question is how much longer we can afford to pretend that citizenship is still a moral sorting hat. Because the actions of those in power today aren't just immoral, they're outright spineless.
The Swedish legal system, like many across Europe, operates on the premise that rights are conditional. You only get them if you belong. If you can prove something. If you fit. But belonging itself has become a moving target. A permanent resident one day can become a deportation case the next. Legal status becomes not a guarantee, but a loophole — retractable, reversible, revoked on technicalities or political whim. Lawyers are fighting for change but are working against the system.
Some scholars, such as Goodman, Cohen, and Shaw, have tried to warn us about the risks of populism in connection to migration — where the will of the people becomes an excuse for eroding rights. But they miss something crucial. The deeper danger isn't populism. It's legal rigidity.
When the law no longer adapts to a collapsing world, it becomes a form of violence for the comforts of the real asylum: the nationalists.
The Law at Work
At the human rights law firm where I worked, this contradiction played out every day. I had the privilege of learning from Chief Attorney Ruth Nordström — a lawyer with high integrity. Her commitment to justice is unwavering, and her courage in the face of political pressure reminded me why I entered this field in the first place: to protect the vulnerable, to uphold fairness, and to serve people — not systems.
But even in this space of integrity, I was confronted with a hard truth. Migration law is expensive. It is urgent, complex, emotionally exhausting — and it costs. The Swedish state offers some legal aid for asylum seekers, but not for everyone, and you are even encouraged to fill it in together with your lawyer. And if you do receive aid, it might only cover the minimum time required, barely enough to understand the case, let alone argue it.
The result is devastating. I saw people who were turned away not because their case was weak, but because they couldn't pay or the notion that they could not pay. We tell them the law is neutral. But the truth is, it is a fine line when justice is justice and when justice is a commodity. If you can't afford the right words in the right forum, you lose, even if you are right.
Take Karim (a pseudonym). He lived in Sweden. He had a Swedish partner. He spoke the language fluently. He had worked for years, paid his taxes, never broken a law, and contributed to his community. He had done everything by the book — followed every instruction, met every requirement. Still, when he applied for permanent residency, the answer came back: denied.
There was no explanation that made sense. No logic he could trace. He had followed the rules, and still the system said no. It didn't matter that his life was here, that he had ties, roots, responsibilities. The rejection felt arbitrary — like a door slammed shut without warning.
A friend, who had been through the same ordeal, gave him advice: "Get a lawyer. That's when it worked for me."
So he did. It cost him more than he could afford — time, energy, and money. But it worked. Suddenly, the same facts that led to a rejection became grounds for approval. Nothing had changed in his story, only who told it — and who could navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth on his behalf.
This is the quiet injustice at the heart of so many legal systems. In theory, the law is neutral, blind, equal — a shield for the vulnerable, a check on power. But in practice, it works best for those who can afford its tools: lawyers, interpreters, time to wait, and energy to fight.
For everyone else, it's a maze without a map. A system so complex that justice becomes not a right, but a service — one that must be purchased, bargained for, or lost in silence.
And so the promise of equality before the law dissolves — not in scandal or spectacle, but in everyday decisions that quietly divide those who can access justice from those who cannot.
In migration law, violence doesn't come with batons or prison bars. It comes through silence and an automated repressive and discriminatory system. Through rejections, delays, and procedural tricks.
It comes through the language of neutrality — "Unfortunately, we cannot proceed with your case" — even as lives are torn apart.
We train lawyers to believe in the rule of law. But what happens when the law becomes a tool of exclusion? When legality itself is the weapon?
The violence is not always loud. It is quiet, polite, bureaucratic. But that makes it even more dangerous because it wears the mask of legitimacy.
"This Isn't My Sweden Anymore" — But It Could Be Again
A Swedish friend once told me in despair: This isn't the Sweden I remember — we used to know how to welcome people. And they're right.
In the 1960s and ྂs, Sweden opened its doors to Finnish, Iraqi, Iranian, and Yugoslav migrants. Immigrant workers fueled Volvo's industrial boom, often with higher employment rates than native Swedes. Chilean refugees found not just safety, but jobs, unions, and a future. These weren't isolated success stories — they were part of a larger social project. Sweden didn't just integrate migrants — migrants helped build Sweden's welfare state and its economic prosperity.
That's the Sweden many remember — not a utopia, but a society that invested in people and saw newcomers as part of a shared future.
A 2019 study by the Riksbank left little room for doubt: when integration is done right, immigration isn't a burden — it's an economic asset. The report found that successful integration strengthens public finances, boosts productivity, and offsets the fiscal pressures of an aging population. In other words, this isn't just about humanitarian values or moral obligations — it's about sound economic policy. Immigration, if managed wisely, pays off. But the benefits don't come automatically. They require long-term commitment, coherent policies, and robust public infrastructure.
This is where Sweden's recent trajectory tells a cautionary tale.
When Sweden chooses to invest — as it did during the postwar period, building affordable housing, expanding the welfare state, strengthening unions, and ensuring access to education — integration flourishes. Migrants become full participants in society, contributing not only through work and taxes, but through culture, innovation, and community life. Sweden's reputation as a social model wasn't a coincidence. It was built on political choices to reduce inequality and promote inclusion.
But when Sweden retreats — embracing austerity, dismantling social housing, weakening labour protections, and hollowing out welfare institutions — integration falters. What follows is not a failure of people, but of policy. The result is segregation, alienation, and marginalisation — not because migrants failed to integrate, but because the state failed to provide the tools and conditions to make it possible.
It's convenient for politicians to blame migrants for the symptoms of systemic neglect. But the truth is more uncomfortable: the real crisis lies not in immigration, but in the erosion of the very structures that once made inclusion possible. For decades, austerity has chipped away at the foundations of Sweden's social contract. What was once a nation proud of lifting people up is now too often preoccupied with shutting people out.
Integration is not magic. It's a choice — a political, economic, and moral one. And it's time Sweden chooses again.
Today, that legacy is crumbling. And the shift is no accident.
The Swedish government is engaged in a two-faced operation. On one side, it speaks the language of liberal democracy, promising reforms that safeguard the rule of law. Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer has proposed constitutional changes to strengthen judicial independence — ensuring courts are shielded from political interference, improving dismissal procedures for judges, and removing partisan control over court administration. These proposals reflect values I was taught to admire at Uppsala university: impartiality, legality, checks and balances.
But the other face tells a different story. While Strömmer praises judicial independence, his ministry simultaneously expands the surveillance state — targeting children under 15 with secret coercive measures. Under these proposals, the Swedish police could track, wiretap, and monitor children in secret. No court proceedings. No transparency. Just the state peering into childhood under the guise of "preventing gang crime."
The Creep of Authoritarianism
This is not about security. It is about control. There is no credible evidence that mass surveillance of children will reduce crime. Even the Professor Jerzy Sarnecki (Stockholm University) has argued that BRÅ's research shows (I paraphrase and translate): "Repressive measures disproportionately target immigrant communities while failing to address root causes". They cast entire communities — especially racialised, poor, and immigrant neighborhoods — as threats.
The pattern is familiar. It is the authoritarian playbook. Target the most vulnerable. Finally, expand state powers in the name of safety.
Children are simply the first to be sacrificed. But once the tools are built, they will not stay confined to the original justification. Activists, journalists, whistleblowers — none are safe in a society that treats basic rights as optional.
Will Sweden be turned to the UK and the United States where protesters are prosecuted? If we are not already there.
The False Binary
We are told we must choose between safety and rights. That either we let gangs rule the streets or we let the state into every phone, every message, every bedroom.
This is a false choice. The real solution to youth crime lies not in more punishment, but in more care. More investment in communities. More youth workers, social services, and mental health support. More housing. More hope.
Sweden has the resources and the experience of successful integration.
As I wrote in my earlier piece Sweden on Trial: Climate Betrayal, Racism and the Silence of Complicity, the rise of Sweden's right-wing government is not a break from the norm. It is the inevitable result of decades of political choices. Neoliberalism has hollowed out the state, sold off public housing, and auctioned education to the highest bidder while giving the state simultaneously more authoritarian control through the police. Citizenship is no longer grounded in rights or dignity. It is now about productivity. About profitability. About disposability. In this way, Sweden has come to resemble the United States more than we like to admit.
Over time, much of the Western world has begun to emulate the U.S. model, admiring its myths of self-reliance and free markets, while importing the very structures that have led to deep divisions and systemic failure. Sweden is no exception. Sweden and the EU have championed market reforms that have fuelled inequality, worsened segregation, and heightened the cult of individualism. These choices have brought us here: a polarised society marked by social fragmentation, rising crime, and political responses that lean heavily on repression: more police, tougher sentencing, and an ever-narrowing definition of who belongs.
To drive this home, it is not only neoliberalism, professor Jason Hickel writes: "it is common in Western discourse to claim there is a natural connection between capitalism and democracy. Sometimes the two concepts are virtually fused together. I always find this odd because I value democracy, but there is nothing democratic about capitalism."
A Call to Reimagine and Action
We can no longer afford to treat business and human rights as separate domains. The artificial divide between private law (governing corporations) and public law (protecting rights) ignores a fundamental truth: business activity shapes lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems every day. When company rights consistently outweigh social and environmental protections, the law doesn't just fail to adapt, it actively enables harm. A fractured legal framework obscures accountability, prioritises profit over dignity, and pretends neutrality where none exists. The stakes are too high to sustain this fiction. We need systems that recognise commerce as a force with human consequences not a profit one — and govern it accordingly.
If we are to survive this century, we must stop serving systems that were never built to serve us. We must stop patching up legal frameworks that uphold injustice. We must dare to imagine something better.
Solidarity cannot stop at the border. Rights cannot depend on paperwork. And children — no matter where they were born — deserve protection, not prosecution.
From Legality to Humanity
Working in migration law has shown me more than legal loopholes or institutional bias — it revealed a system that cloaks its violence in civility. We say we are fair. But only the privileged navigate the maze. We say we protect children. But only some. We say we value law. But only when it serves power.
Sweden's transformation is quiet. Bureaucratic. Polite. But that doesn't make it less dangerous.
If we truly want justice, we can't serve a system built on fear, exclusion, and silence. We must expose it. Challenge it. And change it.
To paraphrase Ricky Lanusse — We go loud.
This article is written by Adam Lantz but provided to The New Climate by The Law Lab, an independent publication and movement examining how legal systems can better serve people and planet through critical analysis and reimagined frameworks.
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