18-year-old Lena came to Sweden from Ukraine at the age of eight in 2014. She is currently in high school, set to graduate this summer, and works part-time in elderly care. However, the Swedish Migration Agency has decided to deport her to Ukraine now that she has turned eighteen.
– Life can be turned upside down in a second, says Lena to Samnytt.

They are both eighteen years old. They both come from war-torn countries. And they both came to Sweden as children.

Olena Bezhenar, or Lena as she prefers to be called, arrived in Sweden from Ukraine with her family in the summer of 2014. She had just turned eight at the time.

Faris Al Abdullah, on the other hand, is from Syria. He had just turned eleven when he and his family applied for residence permits in January 2018.

Nursing assistant vs suspected terrorist

But that’s where all similarities between the two eighteen-year-olds end. They have chosen two very different paths in life.

Lena is currently studying the final semester of high school to become a nursing assistant. She will graduate this summer and works extra in elderly care. She is law-abiding, has no criminal record, and speaks perfect Swedish without any hint of an accent.

Faris Al Abdullah, on the other hand, has been convicted of several serious crimes; serious sabotage against emergency services, robbery, and drug offenses. He has lived in residential care, and is currently in custody in Stockholm suspected of attempted murder and terrorist offenses. He was arrested earlier this week; wanted for planning an Islamist attack in Sweden.

READ MORE: He was arrested in Stockholm – suspected of planning terrorism against Sweden

One of these two teenagers is allowed to stay in Sweden. The other is not.

Deportation decision

On Tuesday, the same day Faris Al Abdullah was arrested in an operation in Stockholm, Lena Bezhenar in Sollefteå receives a decision from the Swedish Migration Agency. After almost eleven years, she is to be deported to Ukraine.

Lena has four weeks to pack her bags and leave Sweden. If she does not do so in time, she risks being issued a re-entry ban. She would then be prohibited not only from returning to Sweden, but also from entering any other Schengen country.

– It’s a shock! You have lived and built your whole life here, and then they can decide over your life in such a short time, says Lena to Samnytt and concludes:

– Life can be turned upside down in a second.

Lena will appeal the Swedish Migration Agency’s decision. She does not have high hopes of being allowed to stay in Sweden, but she at least wants to be able to finish her high school studies.

– What we hope for right now is that I will be able to finish school since I’m in my final year of high school and will graduate this summer, she says.

Father who works

When Lena arrives in Sweden with her family in 2014, her parents apply for asylum for themselves, her, and her siblings. In late summer 2016, the family’s asylum application is rejected.

However, Lena’s father manages to find a job, and he can therefore reapply for a residence permit as a worker. This is granted. The children in the family are granted residence permits as “family members of a worker.”

However, residence permits for such workers and their family members are temporary and are extended every two years. For example, it is not possible to apply for citizenship with a temporary residence permit.

In October 2021, when Lena is fifteen years old, her latest extension application is submitted to the Swedish Migration Agency. Thereafter, the authority’s wheels grind slowly. Sometimes they do.

On December 5, 2024, last year, her father receives a positive decision. He works, is law-abiding, and is responsible, and now finally receives permanent residence permit in Sweden. He is allowed to stay.

However, high school student Lena has turned eighteen, is of legal age, and is no longer considered a family member of a worker. Her application is therefore processed separately, and now just over two months later, she suddenly receives a rejection. And she must return to Ukraine.

Father who is a criminal

When Faris Al Abdullah, on the other hand, comes to Sweden from Syria in January 2018, it takes less than two months for his family to be granted permanent residence permits. This was the preferential treatment policy for migrants from Syria at the time.

Although Faris’s father is convicted of assault that he commits after less than a year in Sweden, it does not affect the family’s asylum status. The father is later also convicted of smuggling and despite several years in the country, is not self-supporting. This also does not jeopardize their residence permits.

The father’s criminal activity does not prevent son Faris from applying for and being granted Swedish citizenship as a fourteen-year-old in the spring of 2021.

The application is submitted on May 28, 2021, which is a Friday. The citizenship is granted on June 1, the following Tuesday. Sometimes it goes very fast.

Since Faris Al Abdullah is now a Swedish citizen, it does not matter that he has since committed several serious crimes. Not even that he is now a suspected terrorist in custody for planning an attack in Sweden.

That’s how the Swedish system works.

Guaranteed job in Sweden

Lena Bezhenar is not the only one in the family who has received a deportation decision. She has a five-year-older brother who is also to be deported. However, one of her older sisters has been granted permanent residence permit, while another older sister is still awaiting a decision.

It is a very large family. There are eleven children in the sibling group, where the oldest is 29 years old and the youngest are six-year-old twins. One of the brothers is married and has three children of his own. They are all law-abiding. None of them have so much as a speeding ticket in their criminal record.

Lena hopes that the Swedish authorities will allow her to finish her high school studies, so she can start working full-time and apply for residence permit that way. Based on her own merits.

– Then I have a guaranteed job here in Sollefteå within the Sollefteå municipality. We are quite sure they will reject again, but we hope for the best, she says.

She already has work experience. Since she has only had temporary residence permits all along, she has not been entitled to student aid like other high school students.

– I have done some extra work. I have had summer jobs in elderly care at Lissgården in Näsåker. Then my parents have contributed a lot of money, she says.

Knows no one in Ukraine

Lena has grown up in Sweden. She has gone to school in Sweden. And she has lived more than half of her life in Sweden.

She has visited Ukraine and last did so when she was twelve years old. When Samnytt asks which part of Ukraine Lena comes from, she becomes a little puzzled.

– I’m so bad at that. I don’t know, she says and has to think.

– Ternopil! It’s very close to Moldova, she answers after a while.

She knows no one in Ternopil, even though her grandmother lives there. Would she be able to live with her if she is thrown out of Sweden? She is hesitant.

– It’s her house. She has her little life there, reasons Lena Bezhenar.