More success for SULF on migration issues
- Thanks to SULF and our formal response to the government’s consultation document, it has now been confirmed that people with residence permits for purposes such as research will also be covered by the new rules designed to reduce the risk of ‘teenage deportations’, says Robert Andersson, chief negotiator at SULF.
-The government has also taken on board our views on how the financial support requirement for family members of researchers should be formulated in order to avoid the major problems we could foresee if the proposal put forward by a committee of inquiry were to be implemented as it stood. Once again, we have nudged the government in the right direction to prevent damage to Sweden’s attractiveness to highly qualified individuals. We are very pleased that the government has listened to SULF on this matter, says Robert Andersson.
On 1 June, the government submitted a draft bill on stricter conditions for family reunification to the Council on Legislation, (Lagrådet), the state agency that scrutinises bills that the government intends to submit to the parliament. During the press conference to announce this submission, much of the focus was on the raised age limit for when children can obtain a residence permit through their parents from 18 to 21. This is a positive development, though problems are likely to arise in the future even with this higher age limit.
What received less attention was that the new provisions are worded in such a way that it does not matter what type of residence permit the parents hold. This is important, because the proposal put forward by the committee could have been interpreted as not applying to people with residence permits for research purposes or to holders of EU Blue Cards. Additionally, the government has listened to SULF regarding the introduction of a financial support requirement for family members of researchers. SULF did not believe that there was a need to introduce such a requirement, as this had not been a problem in practice. While the government has not gone that far, it has clarified that a family’s combined income or savings must be taken into account, and not solely that of the family member concerned, which was what the committee of inquiry had proposed. The introduction of such a requirement would have been disastrous, as it is by no means certain that an accompanying family member would be able to find work on arrival in Sweden, which in turn could have meant that many top researchers would not have been able to bring their families with them and would therefore have chosen