Sweden has ordered well over 1,000 British citizens to leave the country since Britain left the European Union, singlehandedly accounting for almost half of the union’s total, and close to double the number ordered to leave The Netherlands, the next most strict country. 

This figure also includes cases unrelated to Brexit, such as for example British citizens falling foul of Covid rules during the pandemic and being denied entry on the border, but has nonetheless sparked debate after a number of Brexit deportations grabbed headlines.

But the Migration Agency disputes in the analysis that its rejections of Brexit permits were unfair.

“British citizens have raised concerns that the Migration Agency’s judgements on what constitutes reasonable grounds [for a late application] have been made much too strictly,” the document begins, before concluding that it is satisfied that this is not, in fact, the case. 

Its decisions, it declares, have instead been “of a high legal quality”, with its judgements on what constitutes reasonable grounds set “at the right level”. 

The document was obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by David Milstead, a British professor of physics who has long campaigned for the rights of British citizens in Sweden.

“It doesn’t survive even the slightest bit of scrutiny,” Milstead told The Local of the agency’s defence of its decisions.

“They talk about [how] they refused people who just said that they didn’t know. OK, That’s fine. The withdrawal agreement allows them to do that. The withdrawal agreement also tells Sweden to mount a communication campaign, which it failed to do in any meaningful way for the majority of UK nationals in Sweden.” 

“The Migration Agency can’t talk about people having a responsibility to know when they failed in their responsibility to tell them.”

The document was sent to the European Commission on May 28th.

In the accompanying email, the agency informs the Commission that Carl Bexelius, the Migration Agency’s head of Legal Affairs had ordered the quality evaluation following a meeting with with the Commission officials earlier in the year. 

This indicates that the Commission – which is tasked under the EU Withdrawal Agreement with policing member states’ application of the agreement to British citizens – may have started pushing Sweden to justify its unusually high level of rejections. 

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For the study, the agency randomly selected 92 of the 489 cases in which British citizens had had post-Brexit residency applications rejected because they applied after the deadline on December 31st 2021. 

Of those, it found that 30 had excused their late application by claiming they had not known they needed to apply, eight had said that they had been overseas, seven had cited health reasons, six had said that they had been misinformed by the Migration Agency, Tax Agency, or Social Insurance Agency that there was no action they needed to take, and four had said they had believed that they did not need to apply because they had already applied for Swedish citizenship.

The agency argued that rejections were justified in all cases where the person had claimed ignorance, stating: “it is easy to ascertain that this does not constitute reasonable grounds.”

As for the people who said they had been misinformed by the Migration Agency, Tax Agency, or Social Insurance Agency, the agency said that most had been unable to provide “supporting evidence”, presumably because they had been told over the phone, again, suggesting that this justified the rejections. 

In the few cases where applicants could document being misinformed, the agency said that the messages dated back to 2018 or 2019, and argued that “neither the Migration Agency or the Social Insurance Agency could have left any information at that point in time”. 

Being misinformed back then, it said, “does not excuse the applicant for their own responsibility to keep themselves updated on their status in Sweden and the rules for how they can continue to stay legally”. 

The agency gave no details on what type of health issues applicants had put forward as “reasonable grounds”, but said that “even though it is not quite as given in these cases, our assessment is that the judgements are right even in these cases”.  

“Even acknowledging the health problems put forward, it’s hard to understand why it wasn’t possible for the applicant to update themselves on their status or understand the information about Brexit and its consequences over this entire period.”

The only category where the agency said it should perhaps have acted differently were in cases where people had applied for citizenship, and in one case where the applicant was given a deportation order. 

On those who had applied for citizenship, the agency said it was “doubtful” whether this constituted “reasonable grounds”, but it conceded the rules were nonetheless confusing. 

“It can be asked whether the Migration Agency should have informed these people that they needed to apply for [post-Brexit] residency status to legalise their residency in Sweden, despite having applied for Swedish citizenship,” it said. 

In two of the four cases where rejection had been accompanied by a deportation order, the agency said that because the person had not had any connection to Sweden through work or family, it was “not unreasonable” that the case officer had not assessed the proportionality of the decision. 

But it admitted that in one of the cases, there was “information which should have led to it being clearly stated in the decision that an assessment should be made as to the proportionality of deportation before the deportation is carried out”.