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WORK PERMITS

Swedish Migration Agency asks to pause fast-track scheme for delayed permits

Sweden's Migration Agency has called for a "temporary pause" in the processing of so-called delayed work permit and citizenship cases, which means individuals would no longer be able to request a decision to be made on their case after four or six months have passed.

Published: 4 April 2023 16:27 CEST
Swedish Migration Agency asks to pause fast-track scheme for delayed permits
Mikeal Ribbenvik, Migration Agency general director, at a press conference. File photo. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

The Migration Agency’s general director Mikael Ribbenvik explained in a press release that the agency had requested the pause in order to cut waiting times.

“We can see that handling these delayed cases takes far too many resources away from normal processing,” he said.

“This leads to longer processing times, which goes against the whole idea of the rule.”

The request, submitted by the Migration Agency, the Swedish courts and the administrative courts in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, proposes that the government pauses the processing of delayed cases for 18 months. This proposal would apply to work permit and citizenship cases, in order to cut processing times.

Despite taking measures to cut waiting times for work permits and citizenship cases, the Migration Agency admits that waiting times are still long, with a growing number of cases – including delayed cases – meaning that resources cannot be used effectively.

The possibility of applying to have a delayed case expedited was introduced in summer 2018 to help those who had been waiting a long time to get an answer on their citizenship or work permit application to speed up the Migration Agency’s decision and thereby cut waiting times.

However, Ribbenvik stated, the agency warned that this could lead to longer waiting times when it was proposed.

“In our response to the consultation stage of the law, we pointed out that this could lead to the opposite – longer waiting times, as our employees have to dedicate their time to these delayed cases instead of responding to applications for citizenship or work permits,” he said.

Facts and figures

Applications for work permits and citizenship increased by 18 percent in 2022 compared with 2018.

In 2022, around 190,000 applications for work permits or citizenship were submitted.

In 2022, around 75,000 applications for a response on delayed cases were submitted.

The average waiting time for work permits is 171 days.

The average waiting time for citizenship is 431 days.

In recent years, between 13,000 and 33,000 decisions on delayed cases were appealed.

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RESIDENCY PERMITS

Boy who went viral raising 5 million for charity gets Swedish residence permit

Murhaf Hamid, the boy who went viral after he raised more than five million for charity selling iconic Swedish flower pins last year, has finally received his residence permit after 12 years.

Published: 9 April 2024 11:13 CEST
Boy who went viral raising 5 million for charity gets Swedish residence permit

Murhaf, 12, was one of many youngsters who sold Majblommor (“May flowers”) pins last year for one of Sweden’s most well-known charity campaigns.

Sales didn’t go well at first for the boy, with adults treating him rudely and trying to get him to move on from public areas.

But that changed when a friend of his mother’s posted about the racist comments he had received. Her post went viral, sparking a wave of public support for the boy.

In the end, he raised a record-breaking 5,002,655 kronor for the charity, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson among several prominent politicians and public figures who bought his flower pins.

Under the Majblommor scheme, the child sellers get to keep ten percent of what they raise. Murhaf, who was born in Sweden to Ethiopian asylum-seeking parents, told Swedish public broadcaster SVT at the time that he wished he could have used the money to buy a residence permit.

The family had unsuccessfully applied for asylum, but were still stuck in Sweden as Ethiopia refused to accept them, so Murhaf and his siblings were living in Sweden without papers.

But in an Instagram post on Saturday the Fridh Advokatbyrå law firm announced that Murhaf and his family have now been granted residence permits “chiefly due to Murhaf’s strong connection to Sweden”.

In the same post, the firm criticised tighter Swedish rules on children in Murhaf’s situation.

“Today it takes around 14 years of living without papers for a child to establish a special connection to Sweden, which in the best case can lead to a residence permit. The fact that so many children have to live in a vulnerable situation for so long in Sweden says something about the Swedish state’s view on what’s ‘best for the child’,” it wrote.

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