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WORK PERMITS

Deported sales engineer wins work permit case against Sweden’s Migration Agency

Iranian sales engineer Ali Omumi, who was forced to leave Sweden over a former employer's error and then blocked from returning, has won his appeal in court.

Published: 23 May 2019 13:43 CEST
Updated: 24 May 2019 15:21 CEST
Deported sales engineer wins work permit case against Sweden's Migration Agency
Ali Omumi will be able to return to Sweden after being forced to leave over an employer's error. Photo: Ali Omumi

Sweden's Migration Court on Thursday threw out the Migration Agency's decision to block Omumi from submitting a new work permit after his former got rejected because one of his previous employers had made “a clear administrative error” related to his insurance.

The 39-year-old Omumi, who works for major Swedish engineering company ABB, was ordered to leave Sweden in April last year because a previous employer had made an error over his health insurance.

After being forced to leave, both he and ABB hoped he could return quickly by applying for a new work permit from overseas, but this was denied by the Migration Agency last October, because they judged the application to have been made “after too short a time” following the earlier rejection.

The Centre for Justice has previously accused the Migration Agency of applying an informal “six-month rule” which it argues is not supported by law or precedent, and putting workers in a “talent quarantine” abroad, which can leave them waiting years before new applications are not automatically rejected.

And on Monday, the Migration Agency published a legal position paper which stated a new work permit could not be granted until seven years after the first one. 

This means that an international employee who has had a Swedish work permit for the past four years, but gets rejected when they apply to renew their permit and is therefore told to leave the country, will have to wait at least three years before being able to reapply for a new work permit in order to return to Sweden.

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“Today's ruling is important because it clarifies that the Migration Agency has no basis in law to deny deported workers the possibility to reapply for a new work permit,” Fredrik Bergman, head of the Centre for Justice, told The Local on Thursday. 

“This is actually the 18th time the Migration Agency's made up 'six-month' or 'quarantine-rule' is disapproved by a migration court. It's time for the Migration Agency to reconsider its unlawful practice of blocking working migrants to come back to Sweden.”

Bergman added: “Ali is very relieved and is looking forward to coming back to his work in Sweden together with his family in due time.”

He said that the court judgment “does not mean that the legal position [put forward by the Migration Agency] is void, but it definitely weakens it”.

Omumi's case was debated in parliament after an MP read about the engineer in The Local and has also been brought up by organizations such as the Diversify Foundation.

Liberal Party MP Mats Persson told The Local on Thursday: “This shows that the Swedish rules for labour immigration are outdated and not in line with the rule of law. I'm pleased Ali gets to stay.”

The sales engineer's work permit application will now be sent back to the Migration Agency to consider, but it is expected to be approved.

READ ALSO: 10 things Sweden should do to make life better for international talent

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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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