While rough, why didn’t she apply for residence before? It was pretty clear during Bre it that this would be a consequence.
It just baffles my mind. In Spain there’s also tons of british pensioners that had the attitude of “doesn’t apply to me” who were flummoxed that they now couldn’t stay, when they had every opportunity to apply for residence. It was even made easy for them, but they kept arrogantly insisting that it didn’t apply to them.
I can understand Sweden on this, “I didn’t know” doesn’t sound like a “reasonable reason” to apply late. She messed up by not being minimally aware of stuff she needed to as an immigrant. “My husband takes care of that” is not an excuse.
None of this sounds like a good reason to kick out an almost 80 years old woman from her home of 20 years. If the rules say otherwise, well maybe the rules are wrong.
My statement does not follow logically from the previous ones? I do not believe so, since the rule change was due to Brexit, which is a causal relation
Britain decided to stop being part of the free movement agreement with the EU because they didn’t want Eastern Europeans taking all their jerbs. Getting rid of that agreement was quite literally the goal of brexit.
Sure, but it can’t force Sweden to deport British people living in the EU; that’s a decision they made themselves. This is particularly clear when contrasted with literally every other country in the EU. From the article:
According to the most recent European Commission annual report on implementation of the WA, almost 4,000 applicants for post-Brexit residency status in Sweden were refused, out of 14,200 made.
By contrast, Bulgaria, which has a similar number of applicants at around 16,000, refused just five people, and Belgium, which had 13,000 applicants, refused 605, according to the same report.
According to FCDO analysis, Sweden’s refusal rate of 27.5% is three times higher than any other member state and considerably higher than the EU average of between 3% and 4%.
Bigots in Britain decided to throw British people in the EU under the bus, but that doesn’t absolve authorities in EU countries (in this case Sweden) for running over them with the bus. The Bulgarian example is particularly useful here; they got their excuse to deport the shit out of Britons in Bulgaria but just chose not to do so (presumably due to their center-left government).
Edit: I just want to say thank you. I appreciate seeing your comment, because what I overwhelmingly see in response to this topic here in Sweden is “well, them’s the rules so it sucks to suck.”
I know that the rules are wrong, that they’re inhumane and treat people without dignity. However, I never see this expressed by others, at most you get an apathetic shrug, and that’s more than a little discouraging.
Sweden has this mythology around it, that we’re a highly liberal and humane country. Perhaps we are in some regards, living here though and having grown up in poverty, I’ve seen some really ugly aspects of Swedish society I wish wasn’t that invisible.
It’s happening because of the current right-wing nazi government in Sweden putting more focus on deportations and tightening the rules around immigration. There’s been so many stories past couple of years of either elderly people being kicked out despite having lived here for decades, or teens/young adults that were raised and educated here being kicked out because their parents didn’t file a form correctly.
I recall this article from some months ago. A 95 year old woman, Rabea Allah Wais, who has lived in Sweden for approximately 20 years. She’s wheelchair bound. She lives with her daughter who takes care of her. There’s no one for her back in Iraq.
Even so, Migrationsverket believes that she should be sent home to Iraq because she isn’t legally allowed to be here. She’s applied for residence permit several times, but been rejected. During the period 2008-2022 migrationsverket says that she was “missing from their radar” which sounds like mismanagement on their part to me.
So now they want to put a disabled, 95 year old, woman, who possibly has dementia and needs full-time care on an aeroplane to be sent over to Iraq where she has no family to advocate for her.
I get that the laws are what they are but like you said, maybe they’re wrong. This case just strikes me as extremely inhumane and undignified. We should be doing better.
Jag vill bara vara med min familj, jag har inga egna armar och ben. Jag känner ingen i Irak. Snälla, låt mig dö här, säger Rabea Allah Wais.
I just want to be with my family, I have no legs or arms of my own. I know no one in Iraq. Please, let me die here, says Rabea Allah Wais.
Then there are the weekly articles about teens, who grew up here, speak Swedish, got fed and educated in our schools, and for all intents and purposes are fucking Swedish being deported because of some stupid formality somewhere.
See, when the right-wing nazi government took power they did this with the pretense that they were going to deport the rapists, the gangbangers, the criminals who couldn’t be fixed, what have you. Obviously, being idiots, people bought into that idea. They lapped up that fearmongering and voted for the burning children in great big ovens party, and now here we are.
I mean we could follow suit. Currently our government is run by the Moderates. They’re the bourgeoisie economic liberals who put money before anything else. They’re in coalition with the Christ Democrats, who quite openly say things like “pride is too sexual” and “RFSL has gained far too much influence at far too young ages. Gender dysphoria is a result of their propaganda” this election season.
Also part of the coalition and actually outnumbering the Moderates is the Sweden Democrats. They’re the “Make Sweden Great Again” party, whose roots are in the Sweden Party, a very clear white-power nazi party. Their party leader has repeatedly said things like
”Till skillnad från Magdalena Andersson och hennes socialdemokrater kommer vi varken att lämna eller överge våra rötter.”
“Unlike Magdalena Andersson and her social democrats we’ll never leave or abandon our roots.”
If you’re generous, they’re a socially conservative nationalist party. If you’re realistic, they’re nazis. Every single thing in their party programme hinges on non-Swedish people bad. They used to be the nazis you shamed because they openly assaulted people on the street with an iron pipe (while also being heavily misogynistic in the process), but they’ve since not cleaned up their act exactly, but rather gained more general acceptance. It’s cool to be nazi now.
Generally, people getting into trouble should have a justification fitting the degree of the trouble. If the rules impose arbitrary trouble on people (say, by uprooting them from their home of 20 years for missing an arbitrary deadline), then that does make the rules wrong. The punishment very clearly does not fit the “crime” here.
How long had England been a part of the EU before it left? Maybe the whole country should bear the shame of this woman being deported. If they didn’t want it to happen, they shouldn’t have left the EU.
Downvoted because you’re not addressing anything I said, but also that’s a complete non-sequitur. It’s not the Middle Ages anymore for us to act like the tribe owns the individual; there’s no reason the life of this woman should be upended by the foolish actions of the British voting public just because she happens to be from Britain. What Britain wants is frankly irrelevant here.
I’d say anyone living in America who is able to do so should be taking part in some kind of resistance because the atrocities their government commits are funded by their tax dollars. So if that American wasn’t living in America, yes I’d judge them exactly the same way.
Well, I’d say not bothering with the ramifications of the largest, most important and influential referendum your home country has ever had for 10 years in is very grave. It is incredibly naive and/or remarkably negligent.
This isn’t a ‘side effect’ from Brexit, but exactly what it was about: we want out, no more membership, no more free movement. To assume that this wouldn’t affect her freedom of movement is absurd. You’d even call it arrogant.
I’m sorry, this is entirely on her. To now try to shift the blame on Sweden for implementing what her populace voted for, is absurd.
Well clearly we have radically different values when it comes to empathy for our fellow man, so let me just say: I guess some people (i.e. you) do deserve the far-right. I wonder if you’ll change your mind if the AfD or National Rally or what have you leopards eat your face at some point.
This isn’t about empathy but about responsibility. I have empathy for her situation, but in my eyes, its her responsibility.
As for face-eating leopards: this is exactly such a situation. The British populace was lured into this vote by populist ‘promises’ and lies. Now, they have their face eaten. And that should be our problem/responsibility now? Imo, the only antidote to populist bullcrap such as Brexit or Trump is inevitably having to bear the consequences of your actions.
It’s a nice spin in the Guardian article, but let’s not forget that this whole ordeal called Brexit was not brought upon the UK from the outside but they chose so themselves. Including the consequences described in the article. Now trying to blame Sweden instead is exactly a leopard-manoeuvre. And don’t worry, should my country be dumb enough to vote the likes of AfD or RN (and it quite looks like it), I’ll not ask for special treatment either.
Some relatives of mine were in that very boat, in Spain. It required some admin, and annoying coordination of appointments (they weren’t there all the time), but wasn’t THAT difficult.
It’s been obvious for years now that British living in Europe would need to deal with the loss of EU access. Most EU countries made it as easy as they could to comply.
I would hope that the host country would still show some flexibility. However, I can also see a retired Ex-pat ranting at the official, and so burning any goodwill that would have got them any rule bending to dig them out of the hole they made.
In general immigration enforcement institutions are about as ghoulish as banks so there’s no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially these days, but also as the article notes Sweden is very heavy-handed here. See:
According to the most recent European Commission annual report on implementation of the WA, almost 4,000 applicants for post-Brexit residency status in Sweden were refused, out of 14,200 made.
By contrast, Bulgaria, which has a similar number of applicants at around 16,000, refused just five people, and Belgium, which had 13,000 applicants, refused 605, according to the same report.
According to FCDO analysis, Sweden’s refusal rate of 27.5% is three times higher than any other member state and considerably higher than the EU average of between 3% and 4%
Deporting as many people as possible seems to be a deliberate policy choice—not surprising considering who’s running the show over there, but it does mean there’s no reason to think this woman was shown any flexibility.
Deporting as many people as possible seems to be a deliberate policy choice
Nailed it. That’s exactly the platform that the Sweden Democrats ran on when they became the second largest party in parliament back in 2022. They still became the backing for the current government, because a significant portion of parliament does not wish to work with them due to them being nazis, hence why the Moderates (the third largest party) formed government.
It still gives the nazis a massive influence over the politics, and in the past four years they’ve unsurprisingly made big strides in passing policies that serve to get immigrants out of Sweden.
True, she could probably have gotten citizenship right after Brexit, since she had lived in Sweden for 15 years at that point. The rules were pretty lax back then (and now of course Sweden is over-correcting, because that’s just what you do).
While rough, why didn’t she apply for residence before? It was pretty clear during Bre it that this would be a consequence.
It just baffles my mind. In Spain there’s also tons of british pensioners that had the attitude of “doesn’t apply to me” who were flummoxed that they now couldn’t stay, when they had every opportunity to apply for residence. It was even made easy for them, but they kept arrogantly insisting that it didn’t apply to them.
I can understand Sweden on this, “I didn’t know” doesn’t sound like a “reasonable reason” to apply late. She messed up by not being minimally aware of stuff she needed to as an immigrant. “My husband takes care of that” is not an excuse.
None of this sounds like a good reason to kick out an almost 80 years old woman from her home of 20 years. If the rules say otherwise, well maybe the rules are wrong.
You are correct, Brexit is wrong.
That’s a complete non-sequitur, but yes.
My statement does not follow logically from the previous ones? I do not believe so, since the rule change was due to Brexit, which is a causal relation
I wasn’t talking about Brexit, though. Britain isn’t forcing and can’t force Sweden to deport people; that’s on the Swedish government.
Britain decided to stop being part of the free movement agreement with the EU because they didn’t want Eastern Europeans taking all their jerbs. Getting rid of that agreement was quite literally the goal of brexit.
Sure, but it can’t force Sweden to deport British people living in the EU; that’s a decision they made themselves. This is particularly clear when contrasted with literally every other country in the EU. From the article:
Bigots in Britain decided to throw British people in the EU under the bus, but that doesn’t absolve authorities in EU countries (in this case Sweden) for running over them with the bus. The Bulgarian example is particularly useful here; they got their excuse to deport the shit out of Britons in Bulgaria but just chose not to do so (presumably due to their center-left government).
“Just because Britain decided to slap everyone in Europe in the face doesn’t mean everyone gets to be unfriendly towards them”
Thst’s what you sound like
Edit: I just want to say thank you. I appreciate seeing your comment, because what I overwhelmingly see in response to this topic here in Sweden is “well, them’s the rules so it sucks to suck.”
I know that the rules are wrong, that they’re inhumane and treat people without dignity. However, I never see this expressed by others, at most you get an apathetic shrug, and that’s more than a little discouraging.
Sweden has this mythology around it, that we’re a highly liberal and humane country. Perhaps we are in some regards, living here though and having grown up in poverty, I’ve seen some really ugly aspects of Swedish society I wish wasn’t that invisible.
It’s happening because of the current right-wing nazi government in Sweden putting more focus on deportations and tightening the rules around immigration. There’s been so many stories past couple of years of either elderly people being kicked out despite having lived here for decades, or teens/young adults that were raised and educated here being kicked out because their parents didn’t file a form correctly.
I recall this article from some months ago. A 95 year old woman, Rabea Allah Wais, who has lived in Sweden for approximately 20 years. She’s wheelchair bound. She lives with her daughter who takes care of her. There’s no one for her back in Iraq.
Even so, Migrationsverket believes that she should be sent home to Iraq because she isn’t legally allowed to be here. She’s applied for residence permit several times, but been rejected. During the period 2008-2022 migrationsverket says that she was “missing from their radar” which sounds like mismanagement on their part to me.
So now they want to put a disabled, 95 year old, woman, who possibly has dementia and needs full-time care on an aeroplane to be sent over to Iraq where she has no family to advocate for her.
I get that the laws are what they are but like you said, maybe they’re wrong. This case just strikes me as extremely inhumane and undignified. We should be doing better.
Then there are the weekly articles about teens, who grew up here, speak Swedish, got fed and educated in our schools, and for all intents and purposes are fucking Swedish being deported because of some stupid formality somewhere.
See, when the right-wing nazi government took power they did this with the pretense that they were going to deport the rapists, the gangbangers, the criminals who couldn’t be fixed, what have you. Obviously, being idiots, people bought into that idea. They lapped up that fearmongering and voted for the burning children in great big ovens party, and now here we are.
And this is why I didn’t accept a job offer in Sweden.
That said, I accepted one in Germany and then Merz got elected 😒.
I mean we could follow suit. Currently our government is run by the Moderates. They’re the bourgeoisie economic liberals who put money before anything else. They’re in coalition with the Christ Democrats, who quite openly say things like “pride is too sexual” and “RFSL has gained far too much influence at far too young ages. Gender dysphoria is a result of their propaganda” this election season.
Also part of the coalition and actually outnumbering the Moderates is the Sweden Democrats. They’re the “Make Sweden Great Again” party, whose roots are in the Sweden Party, a very clear white-power nazi party. Their party leader has repeatedly said things like
If you’re generous, they’re a socially conservative nationalist party. If you’re realistic, they’re nazis. Every single thing in their party programme hinges on non-Swedish people bad. They used to be the nazis you shamed because they openly assaulted people on the street with an iron pipe (while also being heavily misogynistic in the process), but they’ve since not cleaned up their act exactly, but rather gained more general acceptance. It’s cool to be nazi now.
Why was there a need for deadline if she qualified?
Yeah that sucks hard.
People getting into trouble because they don’t bother with the rules for years does not mean that the rules are wrong.
Generally, people getting into trouble should have a justification fitting the degree of the trouble. If the rules impose arbitrary trouble on people (say, by uprooting them from their home of 20 years for missing an arbitrary deadline), then that does make the rules wrong. The punishment very clearly does not fit the “crime” here.
How long had England been a part of the EU before it left? Maybe the whole country should bear the shame of this woman being deported. If they didn’t want it to happen, they shouldn’t have left the EU.
Downvoted because you’re not addressing anything I said, but also that’s a complete non-sequitur. It’s not the Middle Ages anymore for us to act like the tribe owns the individual; there’s no reason the life of this woman should be upended by the foolish actions of the British voting public just because she happens to be from Britain. What Britain wants is frankly irrelevant here.
Would you judge an American doing nothing about their government’s actions the same?
I’d say anyone living in America who is able to do so should be taking part in some kind of resistance because the atrocities their government commits are funded by their tax dollars. So if that American wasn’t living in America, yes I’d judge them exactly the same way.
Well, I’d say not bothering with the ramifications of the largest, most important and influential referendum your home country has ever had for 10 years in is very grave. It is incredibly naive and/or remarkably negligent.
This isn’t a ‘side effect’ from Brexit, but exactly what it was about: we want out, no more membership, no more free movement. To assume that this wouldn’t affect her freedom of movement is absurd. You’d even call it arrogant.
I’m sorry, this is entirely on her. To now try to shift the blame on Sweden for implementing what her populace voted for, is absurd.
Well clearly we have radically different values when it comes to empathy for our fellow man, so let me just say: I guess some people (i.e. you) do deserve the far-right. I wonder if you’ll change your mind if the AfD or National Rally or what have you leopards eat your face at some point.
This isn’t about empathy but about responsibility. I have empathy for her situation, but in my eyes, its her responsibility.
As for face-eating leopards: this is exactly such a situation. The British populace was lured into this vote by populist ‘promises’ and lies. Now, they have their face eaten. And that should be our problem/responsibility now? Imo, the only antidote to populist bullcrap such as Brexit or Trump is inevitably having to bear the consequences of your actions.
It’s a nice spin in the Guardian article, but let’s not forget that this whole ordeal called Brexit was not brought upon the UK from the outside but they chose so themselves. Including the consequences described in the article. Now trying to blame Sweden instead is exactly a leopard-manoeuvre. And don’t worry, should my country be dumb enough to vote the likes of AfD or RN (and it quite looks like it), I’ll not ask for special treatment either.
Some relatives of mine were in that very boat, in Spain. It required some admin, and annoying coordination of appointments (they weren’t there all the time), but wasn’t THAT difficult.
It’s been obvious for years now that British living in Europe would need to deal with the loss of EU access. Most EU countries made it as easy as they could to comply.
I would hope that the host country would still show some flexibility. However, I can also see a retired Ex-pat ranting at the official, and so burning any goodwill that would have got them any rule bending to dig them out of the hole they made.
In general immigration enforcement institutions are about as ghoulish as banks so there’s no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially these days, but also as the article notes Sweden is very heavy-handed here. See:
Deporting as many people as possible seems to be a deliberate policy choice—not surprising considering who’s running the show over there, but it does mean there’s no reason to think this woman was shown any flexibility.
Nailed it. That’s exactly the platform that the Sweden Democrats ran on when they became the second largest party in parliament back in 2022. They still became the backing for the current government, because a significant portion of parliament does not wish to work with them due to them being nazis, hence why the Moderates (the third largest party) formed government.
It still gives the nazis a massive influence over the politics, and in the past four years they’ve unsurprisingly made big strides in passing policies that serve to get immigrants out of Sweden.
Or citizenship. If she really feels that Sweden is her home she should learn the language and become a citizen.
you didn’t need to know swedish to become a citizen until very recently
Knowing the language of the country you’re living in is just common sense
yeah i know, ive actually been learning swedish for the past few months cus i’ve thought of moving to sweden myself haha
just meant that it wasnt a requirement for like 90% of the time she lived in sweden
True, she could probably have gotten citizenship right after Brexit, since she had lived in Sweden for 15 years at that point. The rules were pretty lax back then (and now of course Sweden is over-correcting, because that’s just what you do).
Say that about Indians / Chinese in Canada and you get labelled a racist 😂
Wonder what they would say in this case where it’s all white people involved.
get labeled a racist by a tiny minority of chronically online idiots maybe, if you say that on the internet
i don’t think that’s a thing that the average person does anywhere, but what do i know, i don’t live in canada and can only speak for my country :D