Sweden will clamp down on loopholes abused by asylum seekers wanting to enter the country, as the government announced stricter rules for those wanting to avail themselves of family reunification schemes.
Stockholm has undergone a massive shift in how it deals with asylum-related matters over the past year following the election of a new government led by the Moderate Party with the backing of the right-wing Sweden Democrats.
Sweden famously endured what was once Europe’s most permissive asylum system throughout the 2010s. During that time, the country witnessed a sharp spike in violent crimes driven by criminal gangs in new migrant communities.
Now Sweden wants to turn the corner on the excesses of the previous decade with this week’s policy announcement on asylum. It requires refugees already in the country to provide greater proof that they can support family members when applying for reunification visas.
In Sweden, family reunification is an important aspect of the country’s asylum policy and a major reason that asylum numbers ballooned and whole ethnic communities popped up relatively quickly through a phenomenon known as chain migration.
The primary legislation governing family reunification in Sweden is the Aliens Act (Utlänningslagen). This week’s ruling also raised the age limit for refusing to issue a residence permit for a spouse or partner from 18 to 21.
Sweden infamously received 163,000 asylum applications in 2015, and the country’s diversity woes are set to worsen, as the Quran-burning saga which has inflamed Islamic communities at home and abroad continues.
Minister for Migration Maria Malmer Stenergard directly linked the policy change to Sweden’s failure to integrate the influx of refugees saying “extensive immigration in recent years, combined with a lack of integration, has contributed to Sweden facing major challenges with growing exclusion.”
The move has been tentatively welcomed by populists as Swedish Democrat MEP Charlie Weimers tweeted that he hoped that Sweden was “well on its way to a responsible migration policy” in light of the decision.
Germany increasingly looks like the odd one out as it moved to strengthen family reunifications in a vote in the Bundestag last month. Both Sweden and Germany have felt the rise of populism in their countries the past year with the right-wing AfD hoping to replicate some of the Swedish Democrats’ successes ahead of next year’s European elections in which immigration has become the leading issue for voters.
