What has the inquiry recommended doing?
The inquiry proposes that a special law be passed on the revocation of permanent residence permits.
The law will apply to all foreigners who have been granted permanent residence permits as:
- refugees
- persons in need of subsidiary protection
- quota refugees
- persons with long-term resident status in Sweden
- granted permanent residence due to 'exceptionally distressing circumstances'
- those granted permanent residence due to the gymnasielagen
- those granted permanent residence or equivalent under previous and equivalent versions of the law (this will also only affect refugees and other people needing protection).
- family members of all of the groups mentioned.
The law will not apply to:
- foreigners who received residency on the basis of a work permit, or family members granted residency as their dependents.
- foreigners who received residency as a spouse, sambo or other family member of a Swedish citizen.
The general rule, which the inquiry recommended should come into force on January 1st 2027 will be that all permanent residency permits held by these people will be revoked and replaced with temporary residency permits "if they meet the conditions for that".
If the foreigner applies for citizenship by December 31st, 2026, they will be covered by an exemption, and will not have their permanent residence permit revoked.
This exemption will remain in place until they have received a "final and non-appealable decision" on their citizenship case.
If they are then refused citizenship, their permanent residence permits will then be revoked.
They will then automatically be assessed for a temporary residence permit, with the Migration Agency first determining if they qualify for a permit on the grounds of long-term resident status (varaktigt bosatt).
Temporary residence permits on the basis of long-term resident status will be valid for five years and are designed to be automatically renewed at the end of five years so long as the holder still meets the requirements.
If they do not qualify for a residence permits on the basis of long-term residency, it will be up to the individual to decide whether to apply for residency on the basis of asylum, work, study, or family links.
If they do not qualify for temporary residence on these grounds, the individual will then, as a general rule, be deported.
"For those who cannot be granted such a permit, it will mean as a starting point that they need to leave the country," the document reads.
The inquiry recommends a safeguard clause, which, if enacted, would mean that permanent residence permits should not be revoked if there are "exceptional reasons against it", so long as the foreigners' expected conduct is such that there are no doubts over allowing them to stay in the country.
Do you have any questions about the proposal to revoke permanent residency?`Please share them in the comments below or in our survey here.
Will they actually do it?
While the Tidö Agreement with the Sweden Democrats commits the three government parties to commissioning an inquiry into revoking permanent residency, it does not commit them to sending a law to parliament and enacting it.
On the day the inquiry delivered its conclusions, Sweden's Migration Minister, Johan Forssell, was noticeably non-committal.
"The proposal will be put out for consultation and then the government and the Sweden Democrats will take a position," he said.
Revoking permanent residencies which have already been awarded was, he said, "a complex issue".
It is quite likely that the government parties will wait until after the next election.
This means the they will be able use the bill in negotiations with the far-right Sweden Democrats if they win. If they lose, they can then challenge the Social Democrats to enact it and accuse them of being weak on immigration if they don't.
What's the background to the inquiry?
In the run-up to the 2022 election, the far-right Sweden Democrats published a document called Sweden's Future Migration Policy, which spelled out in detail what laws needed to be changed to make Sweden's asylum rules as strict as possible under EU law.
This document argued that EU law would permit "the institution of permanent residence permits to be phased out of Swedish immigration law, in favor of time-limited residence permits that must be regularly renewed".
After the election, the governing parties (the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals) struck the Tidö coalition agreement with the Sweden Democrats, committing to hold an inquiry into "under what circumstances permanent residency could be converted, for example by giving the residence permit holders concerned a deadline to give them realistic opportunities to obtain citizenship."
It wasn't until the following October, a year after the Tidö Agreement was struck, that the government appointed Josephine Boswell, a judge and a former Sweden Democrat official, to chair an inquiry into making this pledge a reality.
Her instructions called on her to "examine under what conditions permanent residence permits granted to certain foreigners can be changed and decide how such a system could be designed, as well as consider and propose necessary exceptions."
How many people would be affected?
The inquiry states that 98,000 people are known to have a permanent residency permit, of whom 39,500 came to Sweden as refugees, 22,300 as quota refugees, 19,000 people under family reunion laws, 7,000 people on humanitarian grounds, and 5,000 under the so-called gymnasium law.
There are a further 87,000 people with permanent residency whose classification codes that do not immediately reveal the initial basis for their permit, meaning the Migration Agency would need to do additional research to ascertain if they qualify to have their permits revoked.
When assessing the cost of the measure, the inquiry estimates that at most 118,700 people would have their permanent residency revoked in January 2027.
How much would it cost?
If the law was enacted it would mean, the inquiry predicts "major organisational consequences for both the Swedish Migration Agency and the courts" and "significantly increased public costs", amounting to more than 2 billion kronor in the first five to seven years.
Costs include:
- 1.2 billion kronor in additional case handling work for Swedish Migration Agency
- 636 million kronor additional costs for Migration Courts
- 108 million kronor additional costs for Migration Court of Appeal
The Migration Agency will then have an additional bill of 184 million kronor a year for handling future permit extensions.
What has the inquiry recommended to reduce the number of deportations?
The inquiry considered lowering the requirements for citizenship for those who have had their permanent residency revoked, but in the end decided against this, arguing that do do so would "counteract the ambition of enhancing the value of Swedish citizenship".
This means that those who have have their permanent residence permits revoked will still have to meet the tougher requirements for citizenship expected to come into force in January 2027.
The inquiry does, however recommend that those forced to apply for temporary residence be exempted from some of the requirements.
Those whose permanent residence has been revoked and who are applying for residence on the basis of work should, the inquiry recommends, be able to apply from within Sweden.
The inquiry also proposes waiving the maintenance requirement for people whose permanent residence has been revoked who are seeking a temporary residency permit on the basis of family links.
Is it legal?
Taking away a right that was, on paper, supposed to be permanent is, the inquiry concedes "a very invasive measure for the individual".
"This is because the predictability and security that permanent residence represents will disappear," the conclusions read.
Under Swedish law, a so-called "favourable administrative decision", or gynnande förvaltningsrättsligt beslut like an award of permanent residency cannot simply be revoked arbitrarily.
But the inquiry found that if such a revocation was carried out through an entirely new piece of legislation, there was no general prohibition either under Swedish law or under EU law to doing so.
"When we looked into whether this can be done or not, there is a strong principle that favourable administrative decisions – such as the granting of a permanent residence permit – cannot simply be revoked. That is well established," the Boswell explained.
"But we have concluded that if a new law is passed, since this does not concern a criminal procedure and it does not concern a tax procedure, we have not found any explicit prohibition against doing this.
In our assessment, there is no explicit ban on doing it. Whether it is easy to do, or proportionate to do, that is for the government to decide. But we do not see any legal obstacles."
The lawyer Emelie Jörwall, who is on the board of the Swedish Bar Association and who was seconded to the inquiry as one of three legal experts, included a "special statement" or särskilt yttrande dissenting from this conclusion.
"Even if there is no explicit prohibition against retroactive legislation in Sweden, it must in this context be given particular consideration that what is now under discussion concerns especially vulnerable individuals who have left their home country and, after being granted a permanent residence permit, planned their future in Sweden," she wrote.
"The retroactive legislation introduced in Sweden in recent years involves nowhere near the same degree of intrusion into individual integrity as the revocation of a permanent residence permit would entail."
The proposal made by the inquiry, was, she argued: "A threat towards the rule of law in Sweden".
Do you have any questions about the proposal to revoke permanent residency?`Please share them in the comments below or in our survey here.
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