The Migration Agency Refuses to Respond to Samnytt – Dismisses Staff Testimonies and Denies Interview

When government agencies are confronted with serious internal criticism, their stance on transparency and accountability is put to the test. In Samnytt’s investigation of the Migration Agency, the authority chooses not to address factual statements from its own employees, instead questioning the sources and ignoring our questions. This in turn raises new questions about how open the public administration is to scrutiny when criticism comes from within.

As investigative journalists, when we attempt to get the Migration Agency to respond to serious allegations from our internal sources at the authority, we are met with a clear reluctance to even take the criticism seriously. Our questions are not answered at all. Instead, the focus shifts away from the content and onto the sources.

Through this approach, the authority avoids addressing the core issue – whether the information coming from within the agency is correct or not. It is an attitude increasingly common among opaque institutions – where scrutiny is not met with objectivity, but with suspicion towards the sender.

The anonymity of the sources is used as the main argument for not taking them seriously, despite the fact that they currently work at the agency and testify about situations they themselves are in. At the same time, our articles are dismissed by the Migration Agency pointing out that a named person featured in Part 3 – the lawyer Alexis Karpoff – left his post about 30 years ago.

This is despite his role never having been to describe the present situation alone, but to serve as a reference point for contextualizing today’s testimonies in a longer institutional perspective.

Through this approach, the authority avoids addressing the core issue – whether the information currently coming from within the agency is accurate or not. It is an attitude that has become increasingly common among shadowy institutions – where scrutiny is not met with factuality, but with suspicion towards the messenger.

The Migration Agency’s Response

The Migration Agency’s Head of Press, Jesper Tengroth, emailed the following as a response to all of Samnytt’s questions:

“The Migration Agency [sic.] fulfills the assignments we have been tasked with and delivers in accordance with the reforms decided upon by the government and parliament. We are eager to listen to input on how our operations can be improved and have ongoing and open dialogue, including with our client and internally with employees. The agency’s basic position is that we are happy to answer questions concerning our operations, but what is presented in these articles seems to be based on a few anonymous sources where individual experiences or opinions are not backed by any facts that can be addressed. One of the few named sources left the agency over 30 years ago. This makes the credibility of the articles low. Therefore, we decline an interview this time.”

The Migration Agency and Head of Press Jesper Tengroth. Photo: Press photo Migration Agency

The Same Pattern in Parliament

A similar pattern was recently observed in parliament, when the Social Democrats’ party leader Magdalena Andersson chose to dismiss a widely discussed investigation from the online magazine Kvartal as unserious. The magazine had shown how representatives of non-profit organizations in Malmö – and later also in other parts of the country – testified that they felt pressured by the Social Democrats.

According to the information, this pressure was about expectations of loyalty, voting, and cooperation in connection to grants, activities, and political work – something that in practice raises questions about the relationship between the Social Democratic Party and civil society.

Overall, this paints a picture of a political and administrative culture where criticism is only accepted when formulated within the party’s own, ideologically close, media channels. Information from internal whistleblowers or from media not perceived as loyal, is instead met with silence, diminishment, or suspicion.

Instead of responding to the facts, Andersson chose to focus on the sender and question the credibility of the medium that published the investigation. By claiming that not everything written in Kvartal can be believed, she thereby avoided having to address the concrete facts presented.

This is a well-known tactic – criticism is neutralized not through factual examination, but by rejecting the person raising it.

A similar attitude was recently observed when the Moderate Party minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin was criticized from the left after agreeing to be interviewed by the podcast Gröning & Blomgren. The criticism was not aimed at the content of the interview or the facts presented, but at the choice of platform.

The fact that Bohlin even participated in a medium not deemed ideologically acceptable was described as problematic. Here too, the focus moved from what was said to where it was said – a clear example of how the boundaries of legitimate scrutiny and public dialogue in practice are shifted from content to sender.

This same approach now characterizes the Migration Agency’s handling of Samnytt’s series of articles. Despite very serious allegations being presented, the authority chooses to dismiss the investigation rather than address its content. This reinforces the image of an institution unwilling to be scrutinized – and in itself raises questions about what it does not wish to be exposed.

Overall, this paints a picture of a political and administrative culture where criticism is only accepted when formulated within its own, ideologically sympathetic, media channels. Information from internal whistleblowers or from media not seen as loyal is instead met with silence, diminishment, or suspicion.

For those who value transparency and democratic scrutiny, this is a development that should cause considerable concern.

Questions to the Migration Agency

The following questions have been sent to the Migration Agency’s management regarding Samnytt’s article series and are based on information from sources. The aim was to give the agency the opportunity to respond, provide the Swedish people with insight, and explain how they ensure lawful, impartial, and legally compliant exercise of authority.

1.
In Part 2, one of our sources describes that most colleagues at the Migration Agency view the “Tidö government as the enemy,” and that case management is kept as far to the left as possible within the scope of interpretation. How do you work concretely to ensure that democratically made decisions are implemented in actual agency operations, even when the internal culture pulls in the opposite direction?
2.
Part 1 states that employees get involved in helping relatives and clan members, and Samnytt has also revealed that twelve of thirteen employees convicted of unauthorized database access against the Migration Agency in the past five years are immigrants. What is your view on the connection between internal loyalties, access to sensitive systems, and the risk of abuse of the agency’s information – and what structural measures have been taken to counteract this?
3.
Sources describe that native languages other than Swedish are used daily at work, and colleagues do not understand what is said within groups. How do you assess the consequences of this for transparency, documentation, and the ability to detect undue influence in decision-making processes?
4.
According to Part 2, approvals are often chosen instead of rejections because they go faster and involve less work. How do you ensure that time targets, production demands, and internal performance indicators do not steer decisions at the expense of legal certainty?
5.
Part 3 describes how law-abiding people are often deported, while those who violate rules, abscond, or commit crimes remain in the system for a long time. How do you analyze these effects of today’s policies, and what changes do you believe are needed to restore the system’s credibility?
6.
There is a pattern where people move between the Migration Agency and the lawyer’s side, and where former employees quickly return as representatives in cases. How do you assess the risk of conflicts of interest and informal loyalties in this system – and why have no clearer barriers been introduced?
7.
In Part 3, it is described how public counsel and lawyers can, in practice, earn more from protracted processes, appeals, and repeated reviews – and that this is widely known in the system. How do you view the risk that the migration process has effectively become a self-perpetuating economic ecosystem for lawyers, where the state’s interest in quick and accurate decisions comes into conflict with private interests?
8.
In Part 1 and Part 3, it appears that a large proportion of employees lack deeper knowledge of Sweden, Swedish legal tradition, and social context, while making decisions with far-reaching consequences for the country. How do you view the connection between employees’ ties to society and the quality of agency decision-making, and what requirements should reasonably be imposed on this during recruitment?
9.
In Part 1 and Part 3, it is described how Hamas slogans have appeared in the workplace, how Jewish employees have not dared wear the Star of David openly, and how support for Israel reportedly takes place behind closed doors. As Director General, how do you take responsibility to ensure that antisemitism or ideological hostility do not characterize the work environment – and how do you ensure such attitudes do not affect asylum decisions for people fleeing antisemitism and religious persecution?
10.
How do you, as Director General, assess the seriousness of the information Samnytt has published, and what concrete measures do you believe follow from it?

In conclusion, the claims advanced by Samnytt’s sources and which the Migration Agency has chosen not to address remain. These include, among other things, allegations that foreign family and clan structures have gained influence within the authority, that employees with Swedish backgrounds are a minority in the workplace, that several people at the agency lack Swedish citizenship, and that languages other than Swedish are used to such an extent that, reportedly, it affects internal work and staff do not understand what is being said in different groups.

Additionally, sources have described antisemitism and what they perceive as financial incentives that may favor approvals in asylum cases, as well as a system with recurring staff mobility between the Migration Agency and law firms representing applicants in the same case chains. All this information has been presented to the agency in connection with the request for comment.

But the Migration Agency has chosen not to respond to these matters. Thus, they remain unanswered – and new questions are raised.

Samnytt will continue to scrutinize the Migration Agency.

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