Sweden's Migration Agency cuts citizenship forecast by 26 percent due to security checks
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In October 2024, the Migration Agency predicted that it would conclude 87,000 applications each year in 2025 and 2026, thanks to increased staff at the agency – a first step towards reducing the heavily criticised long waiting times.
But new security checks ordered by the government earlier this year are now forcing the agency to lower its previous estimate by more than a quarter: to 64,000 concluded citizenship cases in 2024 and 65,000 in 2026.
'The changes that have been decided mean that the review [of applications] will take more time and that productivity, that is the number of cases resolved per resource, will be lower than before,' reads the new forecast, which was published on April 25th.
Migration Agency chief Maria Mindhammar said it was 'difficult to say with certainty' how the new measures, in place as of April 1st, would affect processing times.
'At the same time, additional resources are also being added, especially to strengthen the work with the security aspect and older cases,' she said in a statement, adding that these resources were meant to address concerns raised by the National Audit Office in a report in March, which slammed the agency over 'unreasonably' long waiting times.
As the forecast notes, it is not clear to what extent these additional resources will offset the increased waiting times caused by the tighter security checks. But if it's correct, it would mean a 16 percent drop in the number of citizenship cases processed compared to 2024.
The forecast doesn't take into account the citizenship reforms scheduled for June 2026 – including language tests and longer qualifying times – as it only considers new legislation once there's a bill or a draft proposal that has been sent to the Council on Legislation for consultation.
But the original inquiry into the citizenship reforms estimated that they would affect both the number of applications and the rate at which the agency is able to process them, and Mindhammar confirmed the agency needed to "prepare" for the reforms.
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The security checks that were introduced in April involve applicants, future and present, answering a detailed set of additional background questions, as well as having to verify their identity in person.
They come on the orders of the government and its far-right Sweden Democrat allies, who instructed the Migration Agency to take 'forceful measures' to prevent people who pose a threat to security or use a fake ID from being granted citizenship.
Experts had previously guessed that security checks would be tightened as a pretext of slowing down the awarding of new citizenships until the reforms planned for 2026 are in place – a slowdown strongly hinted at by the government in an opinion piece in the DN newspaper in November.
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