Both Kazemipour and Joubeh work as assistant nurses in Sweden, despite being overqualified. They originally applied for asylum in Sweden nine years ago, later switching to work permits under the spårbyte rule which has now been abolished.
“My husband is a doctor with 20 years of experience and I’m an operation nurse and a midwife with 15 years of experience in my country, working on heart and vascular surgery and liver transplants,” Kazemipour told The Local.
“My husband was and is politically active against the regime in Iran,” she said. “And because of his activities we were forced to leave [Iran].”
Despite this, their asylum application was rejected.
“It took seven years for them to say no to us," she said. "The last rejection was in 2022. Seven years without a personnummer, without BankID, without anything. We fought for everything. We worked, paid tax, we weren’t allowed to go to SFI [Swedish for Immigrants] classes because we didn’t have personnummers, but we did it ourselves, we fought to learn Swedish and become part of society.”
On the advice of the Migration Agency, the couple, who arrived in Sweden in 2016, then applied for work permits in Sweden under the spårbyte or ‘track changes’ rule.
“It was a law. We didn’t do anything illegal. They recommended that we did this, so that’s what we did. We switched tracks to work permits," Kazemipour said. "Then it took seven or eight months for them to say ‘yes, you can stay here through work’.”
In April 2025, the government, led by the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals with the support of the Sweden Democrats, abolished the ‘track changes’ pathway. This did not just close the door for people planning on using this pathway in the future, but also meant that people like Kazemipour and Joubeh, who had already used the pathway, would be unable to renew their work permits in the future.
The couple applied to renew their work permits in December 2024, but delays at the Migration Agency meant that their permits were not processed until March 2025, after track changes had been abolished.
“That law came into force on April 1st, the law removing this rule, which meant we had a permit to stay here. Now they’ve taken that away and we don’t have a permit anymore.”
The law previously allowed rejected asylum seekers to apply for a work permit without having to leave Sweden (provided they had been employed for at least four months and met all the other requirements for a work permit).
Anyone on a temporary work permit which they switched to after their asylum or protection application was rejected via the track change option was affected by the rule change, including Kazemipour and Joubeh.
They were given a month to leave the country, with the government originally telling them to leave by December 22nd.
“We’ve been living here for nine years," Kazemipour said. "They want us to leave within a month. We have two children, one of them was born here. My daughter is seven and my son is fifteen. They’ve built their lives here. They have friends, they have everything. My son is currently looking for a good upper secondary school. But we have to leave the country.”
Her daughter has never been outside of Sweden, let alone to Iran.
“Sweden is my children’s country," she said. "They love it here. My daughter only knows this country, and my son too, he was only six when we arrived.”
Kazemipour is currently in the middle of a course at Karolinska in Stockholm, with the aim of achieving a Swedish nursing qualification. The Migration Agency has extended their final deadline to leave the country until January 8th so she can finish the semester.
She said that the short deadline for leaving Sweden is bringing back memories of when the family were originally forced to leave Iran.
“My husband was threatened by the security authorities in Iran, so we had a few weeks to leave the country. And it’s the same thing for me now. Full of fear, tears, grief. I can’t breathe sometimes. Why does life have to be so unfair? We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We trusted the rules, trusted the politicians who said this and we did everything right. And now we have to leave, for what? We worked, we paid tax, we’re a family, we changed country.”
Moving back to Iran is not an option, she said, as the situation would be too dangerous for the family.
“There are lawyers, journalists, doctors, nurses sitting in prison in Iran right now. And they’re waiting to be executed by the government. They take anyone who’s against them, it doesn’t matter if you’re a child, woman, doctor, it doesn’t matter to them.”
She added that the Migration Agency admitted that Iran is unstable, adding that it cannot force them to move back.
“But they’ve still taken away our work permits. We can’t work anymore. How can we stay here? Four people without an income? They said that we will become paperless if we stay here. I have an illness that needs advanced medicine, how can someone paperless access that? How can we rent an apartment or have a roof over our heads. I don’t understand it.”
Friends and colleagues of the couple have also protested the decision, with hundreds of people turning up at a protest against the family’s deportation just before Christmas.
Colleagues at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm, where the couple both work, were also in attendance. Kazemipour’s boss, Linda Wikström, described her as “one of our most skilled assistant nurses in the operating room”.
“She has an unbelievable set of skills which will be very difficult to replace, as she’s a trained operation nurse and has assisted operations involving advanced vascular surgery in Iran,” Wikström told Dagens Nyheter.
“I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Kazemipour said. “The new government we have in Sweden promised that they were against criminals. But they’re starting with people who have jobs. People who have jobs and pay tax. People with families. They say they want trained people in Sweden, but we’re already here. They’re deporting those who are already here and want new ones. The ones who can speak the language, are part of society, who understand the system and are already working in healthcare are being deported.”
Kazemipour is also concerned as to what more deportations following the abolition of the track changes rule could mean for healthcare more generally.
“Healthcare needs staff. I’ve done internships at healthcare centres, working in at-home care. I went to patients at home, I saw all the immigrants working in at-home care. If they’re deported, who will take care of those living alone? 40 percent of Swedes live alone, and a lot of those are older people who need someone to take care of them. I don’t know why they’re not using immigrants’ skills to help this country. These are skills the country could use to lift Sweden up.”
“Sweden has so many immigrants, it’s not just Swedes. We’re also part of this society. Look after those who want to be part of society and live like Swedes. Pay tax, respect rules, everything. But it’s their country. They get to decide. We’re just guests here.”
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