A government inquiry proposes that permanent residence permits be converted into temporary ones for groups such as those in need of protection, quota refugees, and certain family members. This has caused an uproar in the migration industry, where there is big money to be made by keeping a never-ending stream of asylum cases flowing. One group for whom migration is particularly lucrative is migration lawyers, who have now banded together in a joint opinion piece to oppose the Tidö government.

The government inquiry points out that permanent residence permits have, over a long period, effectively become an ultimate goal rather than a step towards full citizenship, and that this risks weakening both integration and long-term social cohesion.

Some of the referral bodies that have rejected the proposal include the Equality Ombudsman (DO), the Church of Sweden, Save the Children, the Chancellor of Justice (JK), Sweden’s city missions, and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR). And now, a large number of migration lawyers have joined forces to protest against the potential future loss of their income. Nor do they express any understanding of the fact that previous governments allowed the situation to go so far that increasingly tough measures are now required just to have a chance at tackling the deeply-rooted issues—rather, they prefer to maintain the status quo.

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“We are among Sweden’s leading migration lawyers and experts in related legal fields, and therefore want to weigh in collectively and be frank: Implementing the proposal would be illegal,” writes the group.

They argue that, according to established principles of legal security in Sweden’s constitution, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights, permanent residence permits may not be revoked except in very specific exceptional cases, and that if we “allow changes to people’s fundamental rights retroactively without exceptional reasons, we ultimately undermine trust in democracy.”

One of the 79 people who signed the opinion piece is Madelaine Seidlitz, a lawyer and expert in migration law:

Stupid Proposal

The group does not believe the government’s inquiry reports any exceptional circumstances that would justify the change.

Furthermore, they describe it as “highly concrete violations of human rights that will lead to successful legal action against Sweden in the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.”

All in all, implementing the proposal to revoke permanent residence permits would undermine confidence in the legal system as a whole, at an unbearably high cost to both the state and individuals, and with no clear benefit to anyone. In short, we believe it is a stupid proposal. However, more worrying than governments occasionally considering stupid ideas would be if they, despite the views of the referral bodies, persist in proposals that are illegal.

ALSO READ: DO: No to Revoking Residence Permits