Immigrants cheat their way into Sweden by pretending to be students – then they must be stopped

Published 29 March 2024 at 18.10

Domestic. Many immigrants get to Sweden with the help of a residence permit for studies which they then do not complete. Many drop out and start working instead, or simply never show up for the training they indicated they will attend. This week, the Swedish Migration Agency submitted a report with proposals to counter this.

Share the article

TwittraShare

“Measures to reduce abuse of residence permits for studies” is one of the assignments in the 2023 regulatory letter with instructions to the Swedish Migration Agency.

In this assignment, the Swedish Migration Agency has independently chosen to not only focus on countering abuse but also on ” simplify for serious students”.

Markus Filipson, process manager at the Migration Agency's digitization and development department, has worked on the report.

– The Swedish Migration Agency has established in a completed quality follow-up that there is over-investigation. This means that we investigate matters that should not have been investigated. Investigating without a factual basis those who are then judged to have the intention of studying is something that goes against the legislation, but also costs us a lot of unnecessary time and resources, he says in a statement and continues:

– We will absolutely easily become better at finding the cases where there are indications of unclear study intention and focus on these.

Here is a selection of the proposals presented in the report:

* Expanded language requirement ( English) in the admission process
* Agreement between the Swedish Migration Agency and universities regarding interruption reporting
* Restriction of unlimited right to work during studies
* Change of exemption from tuition fees for co-applicants to students
* Revision of agency agreements on the universities
* Revision of the relatively low requirement for study results in order to be granted an extended residence permit
* Increased requirements to be able to switch from a residence permit for studies to a residence permit for work.