A large part of the total immigration to Sweden concerns so-called related matters.

These are the cases where relatives of a person who already lives in Sweden receive a residence permit.

Last year, decisions were made in about 39,000 such cases.

The National Audit Office has now examined the Swedish Migration Agency's handling and has concluded that there are major shortcomings.

Identity is superficially checked

The National Audit Office's criticism mainly concerns a lack of identity control of those who receive a residence permit due to affiliation.

The authenticity of the applicants' identity documents is not sufficiently checked, it is said.

Instead, they trust that the documents submitted to Swedish embassies are correct.

“When the case is transferred to the Swedish Migration Agency in Sweden, the administrators usually assume that the applicant's identity is clarified.

Thus, no one in practice ensures who the person is, "says Anders Berg, project manager for the National Audit Office's review, according to a press release.

Can miss human trafficking

According to the review, the shortcomings in the processing can lead to the Swedish Migration Board missing sham marriages and human trafficking.

In addition, those who are actually entitled to a residence permit can be refused when the processing fails, and the processing times risk becoming unnecessarily long.

The Swedish Migration Agency is criticized for not providing Swedish embassies and consultants with tools to check the authenticity of identity documents, but also because the checks made by the agency's staff in Sweden are too superficial.

Håkan Jonsson, process manager for permits at the Swedish Migration Board, admits shortcomings in, among other things, routines and access to technical equipment.

- We know that we can get better at this.

Then you can always discuss if there are major shortcomings.

We know how it works and we will review how we can improve this.

We have already started that work, says Håkan Jonsson.

- There are some other checks that are also done, if the focus is only on how to examine this part, you do not get the whole picture.

Håkan Jonsson believes that human trafficking and sham marriages can be discovered in other ways than through the control of the ID document.

- Sham marriage and human trafficking is something we work towards through, for example, personal interviews.