In his room, there’s a bed, a half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola, and a
skateboard. “This is my home,” said Ajmal, a 24-year-old Afghan man. “I try to
get out and stay active to avoid going crazy from all the uncertainty.” He
lives in a shelter managed by the organization Soulidarity and Human Rights,
located in an industrial park near Stockholm.
Ajmal fled the Taliban in 2015 when he was just 15 years old. Since then, he
has repeatedly sought asylum in Sweden without success. Today, he lives in
hiding, feeling as though he has been “running for ten years without ever
arriving.” The exact number of undocumented individuals in the country is
unknown, but according to the government, it could be as high as 100,000. Among
the dozens of young people living at the shelter, many have lost hope of ever
obtaining a residency permit.
Stricter rules
Since 2022, Sweden’s center-right government, supported by the far-right Sweden
Democrats, has tightened migration policies. While immigration was already
being restricted under the previous Social Democratic government, the current
leaders described their approach as a “paradigm shift.” Recently, the criteria
for obtaining temporary residence permits have become stricter, and family
reunification requirements have grown more demanding. The government is also
considering significantly increasing financial incentives for migrants to
return to their home countries.
At a January 10 press conference, Migration Minister Johan Forssell expressed satisfaction that only 6,250 residence permits were issued in 2024—the lowest level in 40 years. By contrast, Sweden granted over 86,000 permits during the 2016 migrant crisis.
For Tobias Hübinette, a demography researcher at Karlstad University, this
is “revolutionary,” as Sweden has long been regarded as a welcoming country for
immigrants. In 2024, according to official statistics, more people left Sweden
than arrived.
Ineffective measures
For Ludvig Aspling, a member of the Sweden Democrats, even this is
insufficient. “We would like the number of asylum applications to be as low as
possible,” he stated, arguing that these migrants “do not belong in Swedish
society.” This view is widely shared within the country. A November poll by the
Dagens Nyheter newspaper and Ipsos, well-known for conducting surveys
on various topics, found that over half of Swedes support further
reducing immigration.
Anna Karlgren, a migration analyst for the Swedish Church, questions the
effectiveness of the government’s measures. She points to the example of the
waiting period for asylum reapplication. Currently, an individual can reapply
for asylum after four years. The government has proposed extending this period
to five years, during which the individual must leave the country. “Will
migrants leave Sweden and the EU? Perhaps they’ll hide better but end
up in an even more vulnerable situation. Or they’ll move to another EU
country.”
With tears in his eyes and his gaze fixed on the snow outside, Ajmal cannot
comprehend why Swedish authorities are offering him money to return to
Afghanistan. “Do they really think I would risk my life facing the Taliban for
money?” Like many other migrants in Sweden, Ajmal is considering
leaving—perhaps for France, where, he has heard, the rules are less strict.
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Publish date : 2025-01-22 01:59:00
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