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Star developer loses fight against deportation from Sweden

The star developer who was told to leave Sweden because of an administrative error by a previous employer has lost his case at Stockholm's Migration Court.

Published: 16 May 2017 14:37 CEST
Star developer loses fight against deportation from Sweden
Tayyab Shabab has been fighting a decision not to grant him a new visa over an admin error. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT

Pakistan native Tayyab Shabab is described as a “world class talent” and has a steady job as an app developer in Sweden, but last year he had an application for a work permit extension rejected by the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) because a previous employer forgot to take out occupational pension insurance for him.

The fight to prevent his deportation was backed by huge names in the tech world including Spotify founder Daniel Ek, and also provoked an online petition signed by more than 10,000 people including The Local's CEO Paul Rapacioli. With the help of non-profit organization Centre for Justice, Shabab launched an appeal against Migrationsverket's decision.

On Tuesday however, the Migration Court in Stockholm delivered its judgment that Shabab and his wife should be deported from Sweden on the grounds of the error his previous employer made.

“I heard the decision from my lawyer today and felt really sad, I'm really disappointed now,” he told The Local.

“I was quite optimistic and didn't expect it. Things were moving in a positive direction, there was a lot of media hype, the government was even proposing new rules, so I thought that seeing as it was all going in a positive direction I'd get a positive decision from the court. I wasn't expecting it at all.”

READ ALSO: Show of support for tech talent told to leave Sweden

The court was split in its decision: two of the four members assessed that Shabab should be allowed to stay in Sweden, but as a result the final say was decided by the chair of the court, who agreed with Migrationsverket's interpretation of the rules.

The developer has now been told that he has four weeks to leave Sweden unless he decides to appeal the decision further to the highest migration court in Sweden, the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrationsöverdomstolen).

“There's the possibility of appealing higher in three weeks. I don't know about it yet though because I have to discuss it with my lawyer and my company, then we'll decide,” he explained.

READ ALSO: Foreign workers form human chain to stop deportations

Shabab has lived in Sweden since 2013. He moved to the Nordic country to do a masters degree in computer science before going on to work in the tech industry. His previous employer made an admin error when trying to take out occupational pension insurance for him, based on which Migrationsverket said he could not be granted a new visa last year.

That is despite his employer at the time offering to correct the mistake by paying for the necessary insurance in retrospect. His current employer, Dynamo, has always insisted that he is a top talent within his field.

“A lot of people have spoken to me, and there's been a lot of support from colleagues, friends and the media. I don't know why the court still thinks it's my mistake and I should be rejected. That's crazy, to me. I don't feel good at all right now,” he sighed.

“In the last few months a lot of people have contacted me who are going through the same problems. There are a lot of problems for small startups – new companies sometimes don't know the exact rules for international people.”

Debate about Sweden's overzealous interpretation of work permit rules and deportations on the grounds of small errors grew so strong at the end of 2016 that the government is currently considering changing them after being told by a parliamentary committee to do so.

For members

WORKING IN SWEDEN

Swedish Migration Agency launches new system for handling work permits

The Migration Agency will roll out a new processing model for work permits on January 29th, which should, among other things, speed up waiting times for international talent.

Published: 26 January 2024 15:26 CET
Swedish Migration Agency launches new system for handling work permits

“The new way of working aims to make it easier for companies to quickly obtain the labour they need,” Maria Mindhammar, director-general of the Swedish Migration Agency, wrote in a statement.

“To succeed, we need to concentrate our efforts and focus our service offerings where they are needed most – early in the process and in a way that is highly responsive to employers’ individual needs.”

From January 29th, the agency will prioritise service to employers recruiting highly qualified workers. It will do this by introducing a new way of sorting applications for permits, filtering by occupation and industry and sorting out applications which are ready for a decision, which, it claims, will also make it possible to cut processing times drastically.

IN NUMBERS:

It will do this by dividing work permit applications into four categories, ranked from A-D, of which only the first, Category A, will be handled by the new international recruitment units, with a new maximum processing time of just 30 days.

Category A applications will be those already classified as “highly qualified” under the Standard for Swedish Classification of Occupations (SSYK), and will include leadership roles, roles requiring higher university education, and roles requiring university education or equivalent.

In addition to this, the agency will offer a new service to employers handling highly-qualified workers, through help via phone, email, and potentially also in-person meetings, as well as extra support to major projects with large recruitment needs, like battery companies and new steel plants in Norrland which often require labour from third countries.

EXPLAINED:

“We will continue to engage with industry and employer organisations to meet their information needs. The goal is to increase the proportion of complete applications”, Mindhammar said.

Why are they doing this?

“We want Sweden to be competitive and to be able to attract talented people. That means making it simple to apply for work permits and for the process to go quickly,” Sweden’s Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said at a press conference in May 2023 announcing the system. 

“We’ve unfortunately been dragged down by long processing times which have sometimes affected companies’ ability to compete.” 

The so-called certified process, brought in back in 2011 by the Moderate-led Alliance government to reduce the then 12-month wait for work permits for big companies, had also stopped working, they said.

When it started only 20 companies were certified, most of them big employers like Volvo or Ericsson, now there are 640 companies, with many others accessing the process through agents such as EY. 

In an interview with The Local’s Sweden in Focus podcast, Mindhammar’s predecessor, Mikael Ribbenvik, said that he had lobbied the government behind the scenes to task him with this, as it would allow him to carry out root and branch reform. 

“I said to the government, ‘if this is what you want, be clear and task us with promoting that [highly skilled] segment’, and they did, and I’m very happy about that,” he said.

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