After a press conference held to present new migration statistics, Forssell told The Local that the government planned to push ahead with almost all the migration reforms that it has begun but not yet managed to pass into law.
These include the work permit salary hike, stricter citizenship rules, stricter rules for family reunion, and a new possibility for revoking Swedish citizenship.
The long-delayed bill hiking the minimum salary for a work permit to 90 percent of the median wage, would, Forssell told The Local, be submitted to parliament "in a couple of weeks", while according to a slide in his presentation, a bill bringing in the stricter citizenship rules would be published in March or April.
"All of these reforms will be presented in the coming weeks and months. So we are working with a pretty hectic schedule here," Forssell admitted.
The slide also gave an update on the long-delayed bill simplifying rules for researchers and PhD students, allowing them to get permanent residency faster and also enabling them to leave Sweden while waiting for a decision on their residency permits. According to the presentation a bill will be presented to parliament in March.
Forssell dismissed concerns raised by The Local that the government would not be able to apply the new citizenship law in June as planned as the universities tasked with drawing up citizenship and language tests have said that these could not be ready in time.
"We are working intensively with that and of course all of the reforms that we are presenting, we want them to take place as we have promised, but we will get back shortly regarding the details on that."
The one reform he refused to commit to pushing ahead with was the plan to revoke the permanent residency permits held by close to 100,000 foreigners living in Sweden, which has been universally panned in consultation responses, with the courts' authority and several others saying it was probably illegal.
"We know that there are different views on this," he said. "We have also received a public inquiry that looked into these questions very closely, and that drew the conclusion that it seems to be in line with international law and that it can be done. I am aware of the criticism, but we will also get back on this topic shortly."
Forssell said that he did not plan to yield to the growing protests against the way the government abolished the 'track change' law in April, which is leaving many people who have integrated well into society and got jobs facing deportation.
"This is something that we promised Swedish voters we were going to do," he said. "But I also want to underline something that is sometimes forgotten about, and that is the fact that all of these people can apply for a work permit, just like everyone else."
"They have to leave the country in some cases, but the latest figures that I have seen tell me that it usually takes 19 days to get a work permit. I understand, of course, that this can be some trouble for these people, but 19 days is not a very long time."
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He said that the track change law had in the past drawn large numbers of fraudulent applications, and been badly misused.
"We need to take action against fraud and the misuse of the system. This system did not work very well. So we need to strike the right balance here, and I think that we are doing that."
Johan Forssell was interviewed by Paul O'Mahony.
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