‘A lot of fear’: the families bearing brunt of Sweden’s immigration crackdown | Sweden

“Sweden did it This For us,” Sofiye* said, making a supportive hug with her hands. “And then bam.” She dropped them to the floor.

Sofiye, who has three children, came to Sweden from Uzbekistan as a refugee in 2008 and managed to establish a life in the Scandinavian country for most of this time. The family lived in a flat in a suburb of Stockholm, and Sofiye worked in the municipality’s domestic help department. She learned Swedish and her children went through the Swedish school system. His youngest son was born in Sweden, and his 18-year-old son Hamza, who is studying at university as a technician, has never known life anywhere else.

But three years ago, after unsuccessfully applying for refugee status four times, Sofiye lost her right to work and now lives under threat of deportation. For the past two years, she and her two children have been living in limbo in an asylum return center in Stockholm’s industrial area near Arlanda airport.

This situation worries him so much that for the last two months he has been losing his appetite and vomiting from stress. As he spoke to the Guardian he was holding a plastic bag into which he regularly retched.

“I can’t sleep. I only sleep for an hour or two. I’m vomiting. I’m so stressed. I don’t want to talk to the kids because this place,” she said, pointing to her head, “is busy. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do physically and mentally.”

The centre, one of a growing number of reception and return facilities aiming to house an estimated 11,000 asylum seekers in the coming years, is part of Sweden’s increasingly hostile asylum and immigration policy. The centre-right government, which relies on support from the far-right Sweden Democrats, says it wants to make its “focus” on “a country of labor migration” rather than accepting refugees.

The government recently celebrated data showing Sweden has the lowest number of asylum seekers since 1985, claiming the lower numbers “create better conditions for successful integration”. Thousands of people like Sofiye, who have lived in Sweden for years, are well-established in society and the job market, and whose children were born in Sweden, are at risk of deportation.

Recent policy changes include placing asylum seekers in reception centers rather than providing individual accommodation, and then offering them “repatriation grants” to voluntarily leave the country.

The government also introduced stricter conditions for gaining citizenship and tightened family reunification rules. Applicants must prove their identity through an in-person visit and submit more documentation than before.

Committing a crime can now result in anyone who is not a Swedish citizen losing the right to live in Sweden. A total of 440 people face criminal deportation in 2025, according to government figures.

“If you don’t want to be part of this community, you shouldn’t come to Sweden,” the government said.

The hostile environment is a far cry from Sweden’s past immigration policies. In 2014, at the beginning of a period when the number of people coming to Europe from countries in the Middle East was rapidly increasing, then-prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt gave a speech urging Swedes to “open your hearts” to the newcomers.

Observers say the direction of travel is unlikely to change even in next year’s general election, with the main political parties, including the opposition centre-left Social Democrats, having adopted similar tough policies.

“Many people we meet tell us: ‘We came to Sweden believing that this is a country that respects human rights: where are they?'” said Nannie Sköld, an advisor at Stockholm Stadsmission, a project that provides legal and psychosocial support to individuals and families facing deportation orders.

Latest government figures show that 8,312 people returned to their home countries in 2025, the highest figure in the last 10 years, while the number of refugees decreased by 30 percent compared to the previous year.

“We meet people who come to Sweden to work or study, and people who do not have the right to asylum,” Sköld said. “We also encounter people who have fled the Taliban or are LGBTQ from Uganda, and then we see their requests for international protection rejected.”

One change that had a particularly damaging effect, he said, was the decision to remove “tracking changes.” The new rule, which came into force quickly last April, prevents people whose asylum applications have been rejected from applying for a residence permit, even if they have worked in Sweden. In addition, those who have previously received a work permit are prevented from extending this permit.

It is estimated that the decision puts 4,700 people embedded in Swedish society at risk of deportation.

Sköld added: “People [who] They are well integrated and established in Sweden… they ask: ‘What else could I do? … If even doing everything that is supposedly right isn’t enough and will never be enough, how can I prove my worth?’”

Life in return centers is difficult. The facility near Arlanda, which also hosts newcomers, is an “open” centre, meaning people can come and go. However, getting there is logistically difficult and many people live on a few crowns a day. Sköld said his team has heard from LGBTQ refugees that common areas can be unsafe, and said it’s a difficult place for children. Many people here suffer from poor mental health as a result of their precarious conditions.

“There’s a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety,” he said. “People who received deportation orders are afraid of being deported at any moment.”

Thamer and Faten are a married couple who came to Sweden from Iraq on a work visa with their two sons, now 20 and 16 years old. Their third son was born in Sweden in 2021. But they now face deportation after their asylum applications were rejected and their work visas expired. Thamer said a criminal organization threatened to harm his children if they returned to Iraq.

“There are people who have lived in Sweden for 30 years, but they don’t speak Swedish like me,” said Thamer, 52. “And I don’t just talk, I write. Do they want anything more than that? I’m not a criminal.”

Thamer said that he was offered a job as a car mechanic, but could not accept the offer because his work visa had expired. “Sweden wants men and I have three. Can’t they take advantage of them?”

Sweden’s migration agency said it could not comment on individual cases. “was trying to provide” [reception and return centres] A spokesperson said it was safe for everyone staying there, with particular attention to children and other vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ individuals.

*Interviewees requested that their surnames not be published due to their cases. in process