According to the policy-making literature, external shocks are one of the most important pre-requisites for major policy changes. This article investigates how the refugee crisis affected Swedish political parties’ asylum and family migration policy preferences. The results indicate that the refugee crisis contributed to the breaking up of a long-established policy paradigm of openness and equal rights shared by most parties in parliament. A more fragmented party system has emerged where a new paradigm of controlling numbers has also found strong support outside the Sweden Democrats.