About 7,500 young people have so far been granted residence permits under the new high school law. The law allows unauthorized persons who have been denied their asylum application the opportunity to still stay in Sweden if they study.
Since a few weeks, the number of extension cases has increased significantly, according to the Swedish Migration Board. Right now, the agency has 2,300 cases on its table to be tried.
- What we are looking at now is that they are studying and that it is such an education and such a scope that is covered by the law text, says Johanna Lindblad Óduinnin, legal expert at the Swedish Migration Board.
"Unsustainable situation"The High School Act has been disputed since it began to apply on July 1, 2018. Now Sweden's municipalities and county councils (SKL) are raising an alarm that the situation has become unsustainable for the municipalities.
- Time and time again we have pointed out risks with the law. Now we feel that our members are no longer able to do this, says Anders Knape, chairman of SKL.
The fears of the law have come true at point after point, according to SKL. Teachers are forced to take an unreasonably large responsibility when their grading and attendance reporting can determine the issue of residence permits and thus individual fate. Many students do not have sufficient educational background and knowledge of Swedish to pass the studies. The difficult-to-interpret rules create great anxiety and mental ill-health among the uninitiated.
SKL also estimates that there are few who will be able to get a job that meets the conditions after the studies have been completed.
- Not many people will be allowed to stay as a consequence of this law. We have let them tread water and fight with a goal that they do not have the conditions to achieve, says Anders Knape.
"Have shorted himself"He warns of a growing parallel society as young people begin to reject applications for extended residence permits, but still do not leave the country.
SKL requires the government to review the law.
- This law has shorted itself. Now you have to decide at national level how you want to do it. Either you have to give this group a chance to enter Swedish society in a normal way, or you can say that "you have got your rejections and therefore they should be implemented", says Anders Knape.