In this paper the use of history in the Swedish immigration debate during the refuge crisis of 2015 is examined with the purpose of determining how the articles express historical consciousness. Furthermore, the potential to use these articles in a school context to develop students’ historical consciousness is discussed. The study was conducted through qualitative text analysis of debate articles from the fall of 2015 in three different Swedish newspapers, using theory of narrative competence as a determiner of the development of historical consciousness. Narrative competence was measured using a model of progression containing four different levels of narrative: Traditional, exemplary, critical and genetic. The results showed that in relation to the present, all four types of narratives could be observed. However, the past was predominantly used exemplary, to guide action in the contemporary situation. In the context of upper secondary school history education, suggestions of how to use the empirical material included problematisation and deconstruction of these historical examples to determine their ability to enhance understanding of present and past situations. Furthermore, articles referring to the same historical phenomenon with different levels of development in historical consciousness could be used to allow the students to observe the contrasts to develop their own historical consciousness.