A summer surge in overtime work by employees of Sweden’s migration board has been met with suspicion—and ‘business as usual’ denials from public servants.
A whistleblower from within the Swedish Migration Board told Samnytt that there had been an unprecedented increase in weekend working in May 2026—with June set to follow. The activity has been complemented by weekday out-of-hours work and the hiring of temporary staff.
The whistleblower, described as an anonymous source from within the Board, senses working overtime is down to a political motive. At the start of 2026, his or her employer forecast it would be making decisions on around 55,000 citizenship applications. The overtime surge seems designed to create new citizens ahead of tighter citizenship rules initiated by the centre-right ‘Tidö agreement’ government. In other words, attempts are being made to clear as many applications as possible before the new rules come into effect.
Swedish Migration Board press manager Jesper Tengroth confirmed to Samnytt that the authority has ordered overtime, but denied any political motive. Rather, the unusual work pattern was simply an attempt to clear the backlog and make ‘technical preparations’ for the new rules. (Tengroth also denied the emergence of separate clans (!) within the Board, where groups of public servants self-segregate by language and ancestry, leading to a breakdown in communication and potentially fuelling the recent overtime decision.)
This issue, covered by journalist Jonas Anderson, has angered the Sweden Democrats. Party migration policy spokesperson Ludvig Aspling wants an explanation from the Migration Board about the reasoning behind the current overtime effort, noting the official rationale
doesn’t sound very credible… When you have to learn, you don’t usually do it in a weekend.
