In a clear indication of the nation’s waning appetite for ‘humanitarian’ migration, a new nationwide opinion survey has revealed that nearly one out of two Finnish citizens would like to see the country suspend its reception of all refugees and asylum seekers.
The survey, carried out by the market research agency Taloustutkimus for the Finnish think tank Suomen Perusta Foundation, showed that 46% of Finns support a policy that would completely halt the resettlement of asylum seekers in Finland, and wish instead to provide support to asylum seekers in refugee camps abroad.
Survey respondents were asked whether they were in favor of or opposed to the following idea: Finland ceases accepting asylum seekers and quota refugees and allocates the freed-up funds to help refugees in refugee camps outside of Finland.
46% favored the idea, 41% opposed it, and 13% were undecided or declined to provide their opinion.
As is always the case with surveys dealing with hot-button issues like migration, a clear difference in sentiment was observed between Finland’s right-of-center voters and its left-liberal voters.
Among respondents who identified as supporters of the national-conservative Finns party (Perussuomalaiset), 84% back the idea of discontinuing the reception of asylum seekers entirely. Meanwhile, 59% and 55% of those who support the center-right National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and Christian Democrats, respectively, also endorse the idea.
Half of liberal-agrarian Center Party voters and 43% of centrist Movement Now supporters approve of the idea.
Those on the left side of the political spectrum were, unsurprisingly, less keen on the proposal, with 36% of Social Democrats, 27% of Swedish People’s Party voters, 22% of Greens, and 21% of Left Alliance voters backing the idea.
Speaking to The European Conservative, Simo Grönroos, the director of Suomen Perusta, shed light on the underlying cultural and economic factors that are contributing to the widespread sentiment expressed in the survey. For Grönroos, the link between immigration and the erosion of Finland’s educational system, social welfare system, high social trust, and low-crime society is central.
Traditionally, Finland has been one of the safest countries in the world. American political and social scientist Robert Putnam visited Finland during the migrant crisis of 2015 and predicted that the high social trust in Finland—made possible because of cultural homogeneity and low-income inequality—would decrease in the future because of immigration. Unfortunately, Putnam’s predictions were correct, and the problems associated with immigration increased each year.
Finland’s mainstream press, according to Grönroos, only recently began reporting on immigration-related gang violence in big cities because the problem has become too widespread to hide. The growing problem, however, isn’t limited to cities anymore, he said.
The high amount of sexual criminality that is linked to immigrants is well documented by Finnish authorities. Problems are centered in cities where there are a lot of immigrants but, for example, this week a 13-year-old child was raped in school in the middle of the day in a small community in Lapland and even the mainstream press reported that the accused was an immigrant who is a couple of years older than the victim—so the problems are not only in the cities anymore.
Immigration is also affecting Finland’s educational and social welfare systems, as it is elsewhere in Europe. Migration, he says, increases pressure on taxpayers and public finances since immigrants tend to use more public services than they pay for through tax contributions.
“Like the safety and high social trust we used to take pride in, Finland has also been proud of its education system. Often we were among the best in the world in international Pisa scores that rank the educational systems of different countries,” Grönroos said. “This score has gone down year by year, and just a week ago the latest numbers were published and they once again sank, and the rising number of immigrant children is of course one reason for that—but not the only.”
“The Finnish people see the negative effects immigration—especially humanitarian immigration—is having on Finnish society,” he continued, highlighting that the ease with which migrants can come to Finland under humanitarian pretexts is being abused by those who wish to relocate from poorer countries to wealthier countries.