- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
Sweden’s parliament passed a law on Monday allowing authorities to revoke immigrants’ residency permits based on bad behaviour, such as having unpaid debts, doing undeclared work or links to extremist organisations.
The law, which covers pending permits but also retroactively already granted permits, is part of a wider tightening of immigration rules by the right-wing government and its support party, the nationalist Sweden Democrats, ahead of a parliamentary election in September.
The law has been criticised by the opposition and human rights advocacy groups as arbitrary because decisions would be taken on behaviour that has not been deemed criminal.
Examples of things that could become justification for a cancelled residence permit include:
Repeated traffic offences
Unpaid fines/debts to the government (basically once they go to the national collections agency, this takes 3+ months)
Associating with terrorist organizations and/or organized crime
Being a threat to national security, for instance via association with a foreign power known to be conducting sabotage/hostile interference (ex. Russia, Iran, China)
Welfare fraud
Threatening public workers (including emergency personel, healthcare workers and government officials)