Thursday August 7, 2025
Migrants, including Somali families, board buses in Greece as authorities relocate asylum seekers from temporary camps to other facilities. Getty Images
STOCKHOLM , Sweden (HOL) — Sweden has deported eight Somali nationals in recent weeks and is preparing to remove at least 15 more, as the government enforces its toughest immigration policies in decades, a move that Somali community leaders warn could put returnees in serious danger.
The 15 awaiting deportation are currently in Swedish prisons, according to Younis Khalif, a member of the Somali Community Association in Sweden. He said the group includes people whose residency permits were not renewed and asylum seekers who have been waiting three to ten years for a decision.
“This is something the new government has been pushing for a long time,” Khalif told the BBC. “We have elderly people, children, and young adults, many of them employed and paying taxes, losing their right to stay.”
Khalif said community representatives are scheduled to meet this week with Somalia’s embassy in Stockholm to discuss the deportations and have already raised the matter with Swedish officials. He noted that the previous government was more receptive to Somali concerns, but the current administration has taken a harder line.
Since Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s minority coalition, which is backed by right-wing allies and the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, took office in 2022, Sweden has introduced measures aimed at reducing refugee intake and tightening asylum approvals.
In 2024, only 6,250 asylum seekers were granted residency, a 42 percent drop from previous governments and the lowest figure recorded since 1985, according to the Swedish Migration Agency. Few applications were approved, and the number of new residence permits issued reached historic lows.
The government has defended the policy as necessary to address budget constraints, but critics, including Khalif, say financial arguments do not justify removing long-term residents who contribute to society.
Community leaders warn that those forced to return to Somalia may face the same dangers they fled, including political instability, ongoing conflict, and the risk of militant recruitment.
“There is no political stability, and extremists are seizing more territory,” Khalif said. “Young people sent back will be vulnerable, especially with no jobs available. These are people who crossed the desert and found safety here, only to be returned to the same problems they escaped. The Somali government needs to think carefully about this.”
- With files from the BBC Somali Service