Sweden is enforcing a tough crackdown on immigration with a 78-year-old British widow facing deportation despite living there for 21 years because her post-Brexit residence application was too late.
But Joyce Thomas was given just four weeks to leave the country in November, three years after her husband died, The Guardian reported.
Mrs Thomas is one of 2,500 British people ordered to leave the country under what the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has dubbed a “considerably stricter approach” to Brexit rules.
Here, The Independent looks at why Brexit is to blame for thousands of deportations.
Settled status gives EU, EEA, and Swiss citizens who lived in the UK in December 2020 the right to live, work and study in the country, post Brexit.
However, in Sweden there is a resident status (uppehållsstatus) for Britons who settled in the country before December 2020.
Residents who moved to Sweden before January 2021 need to make sure they have a “uppehållsstatus” residence status card, according to UK government guidance.
Under the new digital Entry/Exit System (EES), an “uppehållsstatus” residence status card is also needed when entering or leaving Sweden.
Without this residents face being wrongly identified as overstaying in the Schengen area and denied entry to Sweden or other Schengen countries.
In the case of Mrs Thomas, she learnt she should have made a formal application to stay in Sweden in 2022, before Mr Thomas died of cancer in 2023.
The widow’s application was rejected in 2024 after she was told she could not demonstrate that she had “reasonable grounds” to file it late. She then applied to stay under national immigration laws and was rejected again.
It comes as Sweden enforces a tough crackdown on immigration, passing legislation last month allowing deportation on the grounds of bad behaviour and forcing public sector workers to report those who they suspect are in the country undocumented.
The UK Foreign Office has raised concerns with the European Commission that Sweden is taking a “stricter approach” to late applications, than other EU member states.
It suggested that late applications were more likely to be refused. The UK Foreign Office calculates a refusal rate over 27 per cent– a refusal rate three times higher than in any other member state.
In response to Mrs Thomas’ case, the migration agency in Sweden told The Guardian that not knowing a Brexit application needed to be made was not a “reasonable ground” to stay in the country.
Peter Kyle, MP for Brighton, told The Independent that the case of Mrs Thomas is “deeply concerning” and said that UK nationals “should be treated fairly and with compassion”.
“I hope the authorities will carefully consider all the circumstances of Mrs Thomas’s case, including her long residence in Sweden, her family connections, and the humanitarian factors involved.”
