Stricter rules on deportation due to crime

Magnus Resare (M)

Madam Speaker! It is good that we can catch our breath. We still get to debate this matter today, even though it has just arrived here in the chamber. Those of us who were here yesterday do not, of course, know if there will be any surprises today. We will have to wait and see if anything such appears in any potential exchanges of remarks.

Sweden is a rule-of-law society built on legal principles and respect for order. It is a fundamental prerequisite for us to be able to live together in safety and security. But this order has not always been respected by everyone who is in the country.

Unfortunately, we see a development where organized crime is becoming increasingly more severe, where violence is escalating, and where people in our cities and in the countryside can no longer always feel safe. It is completely unacceptable. That is why the Moderate-led government is now presenting an important report on stricter rules for deportation due to crime.

Madam Speaker! Let me begin by establishing something completely fundamental: Only Swedish citizens have an unconditional right to reside in Sweden. As a nation, we have the right to control and decide which non-citizens are present in our country.

That is why I think it is completely reasonable that foreign citizens who commit crimes in Sweden are met with consequences. Perhaps the most important consequence in some cases is deportation. In the report that we are debating today, it is proposed that we tighten the rules for deportation due to crime. My view is that it is an entirely necessary reform.

Offences should be grounds for deportation already when the penalty imposed is more severe than a fine. It is a significant tightening. With today's rules, there are many offences that do not lead to deportation, even though they are serious enough for the person who committed the offence to be sentenced to imprisonment.

A foreign citizen can commit a crime, be sentenced to prison, serve their sentence and then continue to live their life here in Sweden as usual. We can no longer have it that way. I think it sends completely wrong signals both to the offender and to the general public and additionally to the crime victims.

With this reform, we will be able to deport significantly more foreign citizens who have committed a crime. I think it is right and just. It is necessary to restore confidence in the rule of law.

Madam Speaker! We also sharpen the balancing of interests. The courts shall make a balancing between the reasons that argue for a deportation and the reasons that argue against it. But this balancing has often previously weighed too heavily on the side of ties to Sweden. We see cases where foreign citizens commit serious crimes. It can be rape, aggravated assault, or aggravated violation of a woman's integrity. Still, they are not deported because they have children here or because they have been here for a long time.

I think this is completely unreasonable. In my world, the victims of crime and their safety must much more often carry more weight. A family that has been subjected to serious violence by a family member should not have to live with a protected identity while the perpetrator gets to stay here in the country. I think this has been a disgrace for the rule of law in Sweden, but with this reform, the seriousness and character of the crime will be able to carry more weight in the balancing of interests in the future.

We also remove the qualifying requirements for the deportation of foreign nationals who arrived in Sweden before they turned 15. I want to be very clear here: I understand that there is a special protection for children, and it is important. But this protection has become all too extensive. We have seen cases where young people who are active in gang criminal environments, who commit serious crimes and who ruin the lives of other people, cannot be deported because of this rule. For me, this is not reasonable, and it is not proportionate. We must be able to make an overall assessment in each individual case, and this reform enables this.

Madam Speaker! The re-entry ban is also central to the deportations. It is the ban that prevents a foreign citizen from returning to Sweden for a certain period or, in the worst case, for life. It is a ban that protects the crime victims and society. With this reform, the re-entry bans will become longer, and they will be issued more frequently.

For crimes with a penalty value equivalent to imprisonment of less than six months, there will normally be a re-entry ban of five years. For crimes corresponding to imprisonment of six months to one year and six months, it will normally be ten years. For more serious crimes, it will normally be without time limit. It sends a clear signal: If you commit a crime in Sweden, you will not be able to come back here for a long time or perhaps never.

We also propose that the courts shall no longer take execution obstacles into account when they rule on deportation. This is important. It is often difficult to oversee during the court's review whether there will be an execution obstacle after a convicted person has served their prison sentence. Perhaps the country the person comes from will have changed its regulatory framework. Perhaps the situation there will have changed. But it is in any case not the court's task to guess how it will look when a person has served their sentence.

The court's task is to rule for deportation when the conditions for this are met. It is then the task of the Swedish Migration Agency and the migration court to handle any obstacles to enforcement in the future.

Madam Speaker! We propose that prosecutors be given a duty to demand deportation when a foreigner is prosecuted for crimes that constitute grounds for deportation. This means that deportation is no longer something that the court can choose to consider on its own initiative. It must have been demanded by the prosecutor, and the prosecutor must demand it when the conditions are met. This ensures that deportation is handled consistently and that the crime victims receive stronger protection.

Madam Speaker! When one reads the opposition's motions and reservations, one can observe that they once again want to coddle the country's criminals. They are trying to insert a mass of loopholes that hollow out the proposal so that we can continue to let criminal people remain in this country. I do not understand why the opposition is always so concerned that criminals should remain in Sweden – remain and continue to be able to commit crimes and create chaos.

I think it is both proportionate and right that those who are here but are not citizens and commit a crime are deported. It is simple: If you want to stay – do not steal, do not rape, do not assault and do not sell drugs!

I know that Sweden is fundamentally not a racist country. Our basic belief is that people are good people and that most who have come to this country are good people, but unfortunately, there are from time to time certain individuals who disprove us. In those cases, we want to be able to deport these individuals from the country.

Even if the person happens to have ties to Sweden, it must be in this way. If you want to live here, where your family and perhaps your friends are – then do not commit any crimes! It is quite simple. And just because you came to Sweden a few weeks before your 15th birthday, you should not think that you can escape deportation if you choose to join a criminal gang or to be involved in committing serious crimes and destroying this country.

Madam Speaker! I also want to say something about the crime victims, because this policy is about them. It is about people who have been subjected to serious crimes and who live with the consequences every day. They deserve for society to take their safety seriously. They deserve to know that the perpetrator will not be able to remain in the country and continue to threaten or harm them.

We Moderates see the crime victims. We listen to them, and we act to protect them. That is largely what this committee report is about. It is about telling the crime victims: It is you we take seriously. It is you we protect. And we tell the perpetrators: If you commit serious crimes in Sweden, you will likely have to leave the country.

Madam Speaker! Let me also say something about the increased penalties proposed in the report. We propose that the penalties for certain crimes according to the Aliens Act should be increased. Specifically, we propose that the sentencing scale for the crime of stay in violation of a re-entry ban due to crime should be increased. The minimum penalty is raised to imprisonment for six months, and the maximum penalty is raised to imprisonment for two years.

It is essential that authorities' decisions are followed and upheld, not least when a decision is issued as a consequence of crime that the person concerned has committed themselves. A foreigner who has been deported and prohibited from returning to Sweden and who subsequently returns despite this has shown that she or he does not respect Swedish authorities' decisions. We shall not tolerate that.

We also propose that the maximum penalty for the offense of employing a foreigner who lacks the right to stay in Sweden or a prescribed work permit be increased to imprisonment for a maximum of two years.

This provides the opportunity for a more nuanced assessment of the severity of the punishment for the more serious violations, especially when the crime is well-planned, extensive, particularly organized, or has links to organized crime. We know that employers who hire undocumented workers are often part of larger criminal networks. It is therefore important that we can punish this type of activity more severely.

Madam Speaker! This report is part of the Moderate-led government's broad work to combat crime and restore order in Sweden. We have already implemented many reforms. We have toughened the penalties for many crimes. We have made it easier to arrest. We have worked to combat gang criminals. We have worked to combat organized crime. We have ensured that ordinary people get a better everyday life and criminals a worse one. It is a fair policy for everyone who behaves themselves in this country.

I want to conclude with a few words: Sweden is a country built on law and order. It is something we Moderates are proud of. We want Sweden to be a country where people can feel safe. It should be a country where they can go out in the evening without being afraid, where they can leave their children on the way to school without worrying, and where they can live their lives without having to think about crime.

I vote in favor of the committee's proposal in the report.

(Applause)

In this speech, Nima Gholam Ali Pour (SD) agreed.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Tony Haddou (V)

Madam Speaker! Good evening! I heard the usual criticism here about coddling criminals and so on.

Crime fighting is a legitimate and important societal interest; I would like to start by saying that. I will not go into much detail regarding the nature of the crimes, deportations, and so on as mentioned in the motion, but rather speak about legal certainty and the rule of law, and above all about how the government handles these issues in connection with the Swedish legal order.

Madam Speaker! During the referral process, extensive and sharp criticism was presented from a large number of referral bodies against the proposed tightenings that we heard the Moderate member speak about earlier. This was followed by the Council on Legislation's opinion, where the proposals were clearly rejected.

The rules on deportation due to crime were changed as recently as August 2022. A recurring objection from both referral bodies and the Council on Legislation is that the time since this reform is far too short for its effects to be able to be evaluated in a reliable manner.

We in Vänsterpartiet have in previous motions and votes, most recently today, opposed proposals within the Tidö Agreement concerning, for example, vagrancy and reporting of crimes. The proposal that is now being presented must be seen in the light of several other far-reaching reforms in the area of migration and criminal law that the government is implementing.

The Council on Legislation has particularly emphasized that there are insufficient reasons for the new proposals and that the 2022 reform has not yet been able to be evaluated in a reliable way. We agree and also want to point out in this context that there are already today possibilities to deport people even at lower sentencing levels, depending on the risk of recidivism and the nature of the crime.

The Crime Prevention Council has also clearly shown in its referral response that the expected crime-preventing effects of the proposed tightenings that we are debating today are very limited.

Madam Speaker! Regarding the proposal that prosecutors shall be obliged to demand deportation in all cases involving grounds for deportation, the Council on Legislation states, among other things: "To put forward a proposal that has been subjected to such massive and, in the Council on Legislation's opinion, justified criticism from referral bodies with great knowledge and extensive experience in the field is not reasonable. The proposed order is not only alien to the system. It is also unjustifiable both for reasons of efficiency and with regard to all defendants who are to be threatened with deportation in the trial, even though it is clear to the one presenting the deportation demand that deportation will not occur."

Vänsterpartiet agrees with this criticism. The proposal violates the prosecutor's duty of objectivity and risks undermining confidence in the justice system. In our view, it is remarkable that the government is proceeding with a proposal that has met such extensive and qualified criticism. The government's actions raise serious questions about the direction of the legislative process.

When a prosecutor today requests deportation, an assessment is made with arguments for or against to determine whether the request is expected to succeed in court, just as with a conviction before indictment. With this proposal, however, prosecutors shall no longer make that assessment. Instead, they shall always have an obligation to demand deportation, even when the request lacks grounds and even in cases where the prosecutor is certain that the person in question will not be deported. This is an infringement on the prosecutor's impartiality, objectivity, and not least independence.

The criticism is shared by several heavy referral bodies, which I have been in contact with. Civil Rights Defenders rejects all main proposals and also points out that the investigation's directives have been far too steering. The Delegation for Migration Studies emphasizes that several proposals risk conflicting with EU law and Sweden's international commitments, particularly regarding proportionality, children's rights, and the handling of enforcement obstacles. The Swedish Bar Association warns of negative effects on the judicial process, such as a reduced willingness to confess to crimes or cooperate in investigations. The Equality Ombudsman highlights risks and points out the difficulty of overseeing the collective consequences of the parallel reforms.

With that said, Madam Speaker, I would like to move for the rejection of the bill and for the approval of reservation 1 in the committee report.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ola Möller (S)

Madam Speaker! In 2022, the Social Democratic government tightened the legislation regarding deportations. Likewise, under the Sledda government's leadership, a number of collaborations were developed with countries where many of those sentenced to deportation due to crime are deported.

The deportations also increased after the government established liaisons in a number of countries from 2016. The clearest example of a larger initiative is the cooperation Noraq in Iraq. Initiatives during 2021–2022 enabled the design study that led to the establishment of the cooperation, which has been particularly successful.

After the 2015 refugee crisis, the Sledda government also linked development aid with the return policy.

In light of this, the current aid policy during the Tidö parties' time in power, where development aid is what has been cut the most, is strange and actually directly counterproductive.

Another part that should be mentioned is that the number of employees within the border police has increased by 50 percent since 2016.

Something that also cannot be overlooked when we talk about the deportations during the last years of the Social Democrats' government is the effects of the pandemic, which of course contributed negatively to the possibilities to deport persons at all.

During this parliamentary term, we have seen a good effect of the changes that have been made, something that the sitting government has been quick to take credit for. The interesting paradox in the debate is therefore that the Tidö government, on the one hand, argues that the Social Democrats have done nothing at all and, on the other hand, simultaneously reaps the fruits of the policy implemented by the Social Democrats when it has a positive effect – a way of proceeding with circumstances that cannot be considered unique to the area of migration policy, I can calmly state.

Madam Speaker! The bill we now have to deal with is somewhat strange in this light. As a number of referral bodies and the Council on Legislation note, it is difficult to evaluate the legislative changes that occurred in 2022 with any greater precision in such a short time since then. But just like in many other areas, the Tidö parties want to give the appearance of decisiveness and that they are very tough. Therefore, a new law must be in place, no matter what.

We mean that there may certainly be some merit in these tightenings and actually have nothing in substance to object to. What the effect will be remains, of course, to be seen. That the deportations shall increase sixfold, as the Minister for Migration claims, is highly unlikely – but it sounds good.

Madam Speaker! There is one thing that should particularly be highlighted, and which Member Haddou also touched upon earlier, and that is that the prosecutors are now required to demand deportation in every case, regardless of the circumstances. The criticism from the Prosecution Authority is clear in this part – a criticism that the Council on Legislation agrees with. We understand that criticism, and we hear it. The procedure may clearly appear unorthodox. Therefore, we will, of course, follow this issue closely, which we believe is important to point out in this context.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Niels Paarup-Petersen (C)

Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by moving for approval of reservation 4.

Contrary to what the Moderates claim, we do not coddle criminals, on the contrary. It is not we who rule with the Sweden Democrats. It sounded a bit like it was their criminal records that were being read out here.

The government proposes that the basic requirements for deportation should be tightened so that it becomes possible to deport foreigners who commit crimes in more cases than today. That is good, Madam Speaker. It is very good. It has been too difficult to deport criminals from Sweden. We have, for example, seen persons with repeated convictions for aggravated rape who have not been deported, which is unacceptable.

It is also good that the government is finally doing something in the area that one actually said one would prioritize, namely the deportation of criminals – so thanks for that! Otherwise, we have mostly seen deportations of immigrants who are high school students or healthcare assistants or otherwise contribute and behave themselves.

The government's proposal to strengthen re-entry bans, that the severity of the crime shall be given greater weight in the courts' balancing of interests, that general courts shall no longer consider execution obstacles during the deportation proceedings themselves, and that residence and work permits shall cease to apply when a decision on deportation becomes legally binding are all absolutely necessary and reasonable changes for a more orderly migration policy. It is good.

Centerpartiet also considers that the connection to Sweden has weighed too heavily in relation to the severity of the crime, Madam Speaker. We do, however, consider it disproportionate that the government proposes to completely remove consideration for a virtually lifelong stay in Sweden. Persons who came here before they turned 15 and who have stayed in Sweden for at least five years, i.e., since before they were 10, should receive leniency in particularly compelling cases. It is still a reasonable order. It does not mean that persons under 15 cannot be deported, but only that one must take into account age and time in Sweden.

When it comes to the government's proposal regarding the obligation to file a charge for prosecutors, the risk is obvious that public confidence in both prosecutors and courts is damaged when prosecutors are forced to present hopeless charges that the courts then routinely reject. We see that, in any case, as a risk.

It would also prolong the processing times and increase the costs for the criminal proceedings in Sweden. The real risk here is that it leads to the courts' other work in sentencing criminals being worsened and delayed. Sweden does not gain from that.

We are also concerned that courts will no longer have the possibility to, ex officio, without a motion from the prosecutor, examine a question of deportation due to a crime. If the prosecutor forgets to motion for it, it could mean that the court cannot take it up ex officio. In that case, we risk a gap occurring there. The human factor still exists in courts, which we have seen even in the recent past. It is a concern we have.

Madam Speaker! There is, as we have mentioned in previous speeches here in the chamber, a challenge in the sense that the government has presented a long series of poorly elaborated bills that affect one another without there being a proper grasp of the cumulative effect.

As has been mentioned earlier in the speaker's chair, the Riksdag tightened the rules on deportation due to crime most recently in 2022. It is reasonable that one should analyze whether the rule changes we made already in 2022 have had an effect and what effect they have had in that case. We also need to analyze how we apply the regulatory framework and how it works together with other legislation that comes. After that, we can see how we can put it together a bit better than today. At the current moment, it is a major challenge, both in the courts and at Migrationsverket, to put together how the legislation should be valued.

Madam Speaker! Finally: A proper investigation must be conducted of everything on the table, so that we can see if it actually adds up. Legal certainty must be restored in Sweden, because that is what order and clarity in the migration legislation actually means.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ludvig Aspling (SD)

Madam Speaker! The rules on deportation due to crime are, as they stand today, rigged in favor of the criminals, not necessarily by intention from the legislator's side but in effect. It has become this way because the rules are difficult to apply together with some other factors, which I will address in my speech.

I think there are good indications for this thesis, but I realize, of course, that it is a strong statement.

For a person to be sentenced to deportation, three criteria must be met: firstly, that the crime is sufficiently serious in relation to the perpetrator's connection to Sweden, secondly, that the court assesses that deportation can actually be carried out after the prison sentence has been served, and thirdly, that the prosecutor submits a deportation motion. It is the combination of these three factors that causes the rules to not function and that many people who should be deported can nevertheless remain in Sweden.

Madam Speaker! I begin with the first, namely that the crime must be sufficiently serious. That assessment is based on a balancing of two factors that actually cannot be weighed against each other in a purposeful way. The court shall weigh the foreigner's ties to Sweden, grounds against deportation, against the seriousness of the crime, grounds for deportation.

It should therefore reflect the penal and prevention-theoretical principles of equivalence and proportionality. If we assume that deportation is a different intervention for different people, depending on how strong the connection is, this principle must therefore take effect so that the punishment for the same offense does not become different in severity, i.e., that different people should not be punished differently if they have committed the same crime.

It is the academic reasoning and the way of looking at it. The justice system suffers a bit from that way of thinking. It is, in fact, quite obvious that it does not really work in practice. The court should reason roughly like this: How many children in the home or how many years of residence in Sweden corresponds to a two or three-year sentence? How much more sentence value is needed if the person, for example, has a job, can speak good Swedish, has good income, is engaged in civil society, and so on?

When the application of these rules begins to fray, which it often does and often in a restrictive direction, the public sometimes turns to the courts with the question of why a person who has raped a 100-year-old is not deported. It sounds completely absurd. It absolutely is. But I believe the basic problem is rather that the legislator has given the courts a very difficult task. And when judges do not quite know how they should proceed, they simply lean towards the cautious side. It is completely natural, and that is how criminal law is actually supposed to function.

Part of this rule was expressed between 1915 and 2022, that is, for over a hundred years, in the legislation as that if a person has lived in Sweden for four years, special reasons, i.e., relatively serious crime, are required for deportation to be sentenced. That rule has changed remarkably little from the legislator's side during this time. But court practice has been subject to a shift. The bar that one must step over to reach the special reasons has been pushed higher and higher step by step. It has thus required increasingly serious crime to break through.

A clear example of this from recent years is NJA 2019 page 316. In that case, a man from Somalia in his 30s, who had lived in Sweden for nine years, was convicted in the District Court and the Court of Appeal for rape of the normal degree. The Court of Appeal stated that the crime was a severe violation of integrity and that the man, despite the relatively long time in Sweden, had a weak connection to Sweden. The perpetrator was sentenced to deportation, partly because he had never had a job, had no family, and did not seem to do anything in Sweden at all.

The man appealed to the Supreme Court, which assessed the man's ties as "not particularly weak." It is a strange way to express the matter. It is also strange considering that there was social maladjustment and a good deal of reasons to view the man as not particularly well-adapted to Sweden. But the court still found that the ties weighed more heavily than this relatively serious crime.

In this case, the President of the Supreme Court and one additional Justice were dissenting. That the Supreme Court is so deeply divided on such an issue is an indication, which supports my hypothesis, that these rules are simply too tricky to apply.

Just as the previous speaker from the Socialdemokraterna pointed out, a small change in the rules occurred a few years ago, in 2020. We were already clear then that while the rule changes were a step in the right direction, they were far too weak. We pointed that out during the process, and we were later proven right in that, for example, when the case of the rape of the 100-year-old according to those rules did not lead to deportation.

The claim that there is no evaluation of the rules, which several speakers have touched upon here, is not correct. There is an evaluation in the bill. There is objective statistics there on how the figures have been affected regarding how many are deported, how many are subject to a request for deportation, and so on. There, one can see quite clearly that it, even though it is as said a small step in the right direction, has not resulted in any major changes regarding how many people are deported from Sweden.

What is extra interesting is that if one goes back to the preparatory works for the 1915 Act regarding the prohibition for certain foreigners to reside here in the realm, which introduced the rule on special reasons from the beginning, the speaker – or the investigation, as we might call it today – establishes that special reasons shall not apply to the most socially dangerous criminals. It is therefore not to apply to everyone. It is a very big difference compared to how the rules have been applied until they were abolished in 2020.

In 1915, the legislator was wise enough to understand that if you rape a 100-year-old, you should be punished, regardless of how strong a connection you have to Sweden. But that principle has since been forgotten and disappeared in court practice, even though it has actually been repeated in preparatory works at least twice since then.

The fundamental problem is precisely the proportionality assessment. It is difficult, and it tends to push practice in a restrictive direction because the judges are simply uncertain about the legal situation. This is completely normal, as it is a balancing act between two magnitudes that one cannot really weigh against each other.

Madam Speaker! A decision not to demand deportation, even in cases where the crime is obviously grounds for deportation, does not need to be justified. It means that we know little about how prosecutors reason in those types of cases. What we do know, however, is that the explanations provided publicly in certain high-profile cases are questionable, if we are to be completely honest.

A couple of years ago, four young men raped a minor in a forest area in western Sweden. Despite the fact that the crime was clearly grounds for deportation, rape of a child, no motion was submitted.

It was a pure miss, said the head of the prosecutor's office in Gothenburg. A pure miss!

According to a review conducted by Expressen, prosecutors did not request deportation in 30 percent of the cases where foreign citizens are prosecuted for rape, and this is a crime that is serious enough that in many cases it should suffice for deportation.

"Overlooked", "fell between the cracks" and "don't remember" were some of the prosecutors' explanations.

It is very important that we improve, said the head of the prosecution area Väst-Bergslagen.

A chamber prosecutor wanted a "memory button" for the prosecutors. A memory button! The authority obviously believes that the public is not legally naive.

A question that is then quite justified is, if it is indeed memory that is playing tricks, how it is the case that the prosecutors in zero percent of the cases forgot to demand a sentence. If it is memory that is playing tricks – why has it not led to a disciplinary action against a single prosecutor who has mishandled this? That there is an obligation to demand deportation when the conditions are met is already evident today in the Prosecution Authority's own legal guidance on issues regarding deportation due to crime. That is also a very justified question.

We can ask the question: How often does it happen to you who are participating in this debate that you write a motion and forget a request? No, exactly, not very often.

We do not need to speculate as to why the Prosecution Authority is deliberately neglecting this task. It is sufficient to state that it is a betrayal of the crime victims and a direct threat to the public's and the legislature's confidence in the justice system.

Against that background, we can state that the authority's own criticism of the new requirement for a claim appears, to say the least, tone-deaf. It is therefore why the obligation to file a claim now needs to be enacted by law, even though I can agree that it is a somewhat unusual solution in the accusatorial system that we have in Sweden.

Madam Speaker! Another piece of news is that from now on, the question of obstacles to enforcement will not be considered when the court takes a position on the deportation claim, which is naturally a more reasonable procedure. The court cannot possibly know what the situation in the home country looks like after the perpetrator has served the prison sentence, and that sentence will become significantly longer in the near future. The question is actually who should bear the risk that the deportation might not be enforceable. The perpetrator or the crime victim? It is naturally the perpetrator who should bear the risk.

This rule, that deportation is not sentenced if the assessment is that it cannot be enforced, in combination with the fact that all previous governments during my lifetime have been totally uninterested in making the enforcement work, has also served as an excuse for those prosecutors who simply do not want to submit a motion. It is sometimes doubtful whether the enforcement can be carried out, and then deportation cannot be sentenced. In that case, the motion should also not be submitted. The question is, therefore, never examined.

That is what I mean by that the combination of these three rules means that the system has been rigged in favor of the perpetrators.

Madam Speaker! There are quite a few other interesting matters in the report. We are tightening the rules for the deportation of refugees – not least important. We are increasing the penalties for persons who employ illegal labor or for persons who remain here in violation of a re-entry ban. We are correcting a number of other minor administrative rules.

I vote in favor of the committee's proposal.

(Applause)

In this speech, Nima Gholam Ali Pour (SD) agreed.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

TREDJE VICE TALMANNEN

I want to remind the members that a court's or authority's assessment and handling in individual cases must not become a subject of argumentation or criticism, even though they can be used to justify legislative changes. These were boundary issues in this case.

Now I want to inform the Chamber that the final debate will definitely be deferred to tomorrow. The Defence Committee's report FöU14, Improved conditions for operational military cooperation, will not be debated today. Depending on the continued debate, we may possibly have time for the Defence Committee's report FöU19.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Annika Hirvonen (MP)

Madam Speaker! It is important for the credibility of both the justice policy and the migration policy that there is an effective prosecution of persons who commit crimes and that non-citizens who have committed serious or repeated crimes shall be able to be deported from Sweden.

When Miljöpartiet was in government, we contributed to tightening the rules for when deportation due to crime can occur so that more people who have committed crimes can also be deported in connection with their sentence. At the same time, it is crucial that legislation that can have such serious consequences for the individual rests on solid foundations and that the regulatory framework is designed in a purposeful, legally secure, proportionate, and predictable manner.

After having taken note of the referral bodies' views on the government's proposal, particularly the Council on Legislation's serious criticism, we have concluded that it is not possible to conclude today that the changes would at all achieve the purposes that the government wants to achieve. For us, it is of particular importance that the Council on Legislation rejects that the government's proposal be implemented. On the one hand, they state that the time since the last reform of deportation due to crime, i.e., 2022, is far too short to be able to assess the outcome, whether it is sufficient to achieve the purposes that the government also says it wants to achieve. The government can therefore not point to the deficiencies that it is argued should justify the measures that it is now proposing.

The Council on Legislation also points out that parts of the proposed regulation are problematic in their design and that some of the changes are already achieved in practice through the changes made in 2022. The criticism is serious.

That the government time and again chooses to proceed with legislative proposals, despite the Council on Legislation advising against it, still stands out compared to how previous governments have acted. It has also happened before that a government has not agreed with the Council on Legislation, but to so systematically disregard heavy referral bodies such as JO, the Institute for Human Rights, the Equality Ombudsman, the Bar Association, and especially the Council on Legislation makes this government a record holder.

Madam Speaker! Today, it applies that if one is convicted of a crime where the penalty value corresponds to six months of imprisonment, one can be deported. Now, the government proposes to lower the value to 14 days. This could become relevant in such minor crimes as snatching and speeding. We consider this to be far too extensive; that people can lose their entire private life in Sweden, their home, their work, for snatchings or speeding.

We think it is problematic that it is said that prosecutors are always required to demand deportation, even in cases where it is known that it cannot be relevant. It wastes important resources from prosecutors and courts. The justice system needs to allocate those resources to combating, among other things, serious organized crime.

But we in Miljöpartiet do not think that the order that has been has been flawless. We think it is problematic when persons who are convicted of serious crime are not deported, despite the fact that there have apparently been strong reasons for it.

A specific situation that the government does not change is when a close relative commits a crime against a family member and is not deported precisely with reference to that the perpetrator has ties to the family member. It is argued that the legislation should cover these cases, but it is written so vaguely that it is not clear that this will be the case. It would have been better to have a clearer enumeration of circumstances that speak for or against deportation in the case of a crime and there specify that for a person who has committed a crime against a family member, ties to the family shall not prevent deportation. Now, the consequence in the worst case can be that women and children are forced to live deprived of liberty with protected personal data and limited private life while the perpetrator remains in the country.

Madam Speaker! Miljöpartiet would gladly have supported these changes if the legislative work had been serious and legally sound and not yet another hafsverk from the government. Therefore, we send a clear appeal to the government to conduct a proper evaluation of the 2022 reform and thereafter return with the changes deemed necessary. One should also take to heart the criticism from the Council on Legislation and the referral bodies so that the changes become effective, not a shot in the dark.

Madam Speaker! We are deeply concerned about how organized crime exploits people, especially those in a vulnerable position. It is reasonable to create more room for a nuanced sentencing in these cases, and therefore we support the government's proposal in this part.

I would however like to remind that we must also take responsibility for those people who end up in the vulnerable situation of being undocumented. With the government's deportation policy, more and more people who have been in Sweden legally and held residence permits are being pressured to choose between traveling back to their former home country or remaining as undocumented. For some, it can be an impossible choice to, for example, be forced back to the Taliban's Afghanistan when the authorities in Sweden do not believe they risk persecution despite having converted. We also need to ensure that fewer people become possible for criminals to exploit.

I naturally stand behind all of the Miljöpartiet's reservations, but in order to save time in the voting, I move for approval of only reservation 3.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Ingemar Kihlström (KD)

Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by moving for the approval of the committee's proposal and the rejection of the reservations.

The bill we are now debating deals with a situation that has given rise to, and continues to give rise to, many opinions, and there is a broad consensus that foreign citizens who have committed certain types of crimes should leave our country to a much greater extent.

Deportation due to crime is a priority issue for the government. For far too long, society has not marked sufficiently clearly against foreign citizens who commit crimes in Sweden. All people in Sweden shall follow Swedish law. But it is only those who are Swedish citizens who have an unconditional right to stay in the country. Those who are foreign citizens and commit crimes in Sweden can, in addition to being sentenced to prison, also receive a decision on deportation.

Today, as many have mentioned, it applies that a foreign criminal can be deported when the necessary conditions are met. But the government's and the Christian Democrats' position is that the person who comes here and commits a crime shall be deported. That is fundamentally what the new rules are about. It is important to show that there will be consequences for persons who come here and commit crimes. With these changes, Sweden will have the toughest regulatory framework for deportation of criminals in the entire Nordic region.

The Christian Democrats stand together with the other Tidö parties on the side of crime victims so that they may receive the justice they deserve, and we do everything in our power so that decent people, regardless of background, can live in a safer and fairer Sweden.

Madam Speaker! Between the years 2020 and 2023, the district courts made an average of 496 decisions on deportation per year. This corresponded to approximately 3 percent of the number of judgments against foreign citizens, which at that time was barely 17,500. Even when filtering out those judgments that resulted in a fine, the figure was still only 6.3 percent. This means that an overwhelming majority of foreign criminals are allowed to stay in Sweden. That is how it should not be, and that is how it shall not be.

The reason is that the judges perform a balancing of interests between the reasons that speak for and against deportation. An assessment is also made as to whether there are obstacles to enforcement. As previously stated, the prosecutors also have no obligation to demand deportation when the conditions for deportation are met.

Madam Speaker! We are now changing this with this bill. The new main rule is that crimes shall be able to lead to deportation as soon as a person is sentenced to a more severe penalty than a fine. The balancing of interests between the reasons speaking for and against deportation shall also be tightened. The proposal means that the reasons speaking for deportation, such as the gravity and character of the crime, shall weigh more heavily than they do today in the balancing. Prosecutors shall also have a statutory obligation to demand deportation when the crime is a ground for deportation.

Madam Speaker! What can we then expect from the new rules, which also include a stricter re-entry ban and a penalty for staying in the country in defiance of a re-entry ban?

Yes, we can expect a significant increase in deportations, perhaps up to a sixfold increase. We will see that in some time. But here and now, we can at least state that previous legislative changes have not been sufficient.

Madam Speaker! The bill is a result of the Tidö cooperation. We are making changes to create increased safety for Sweden's inhabitants. But as usual here in the chamber and within this subject area, the opposition is split. Vänsterpartiet, Centerpartiet, and Miljöpartiet want to reject the proposal in part or in whole and also have many objections to the proposal. Even though the Socialdemokraterna have been critical from the rostrum, they stand behind the proposal. It shows once again what it will look like in the future if, against all odds, it becomes a red-green chaos government that rules this country. One can speculate that some of the changes will be torn up when something similar to what happened in the chamber last night occurs.

With the new rules for deportation, the Christian Democrats, together with the other Tidö parties, are taking important steps to deliver on our promise to the voters: to get things in order and create a safer Sweden.

Madam Speaker! I have said it before: Sweden needs a strict, fair, and responsible migration policy. That is what we have delivered and will continue to deliver – unlike the chaos government that will occur if the red-green alternative gains the voters' confidence this autumn. We Christian Democrats belong to a government base that both sees the problems and delivers proposals to solve them. It is such a government that Sweden needs.

I move for a second approval of the committee's proposal and a rejection of the reservations.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Patrik Karlson (L)

Madam Speaker! Those who come to Sweden and commit crimes shall leave Sweden. It is a principle that has strong roots among the public, but for a long time, the distance between the legislator's intentions and the practical reality has been far too great.

For all too long, Sweden has had rules on deportation due to crime that have been too weak, too cautious and in too many cases out of step with people's basic perception of justice. People have been able to commit serious crimes, seriously harm others, create insecurity and still remain in the country because the regulatory framework has meant that the bar has been set too high. The government is now changing that order.

The Proposition Tightened rules on deportation due to crime concerns something very simple, namely that the person who is not a Swedish citizen and commits a crime in Sweden shall be able to be deported in significantly more cases than today. It is not radical. It is a self-evident consequence of that residence permits in Sweden do not only entail rights but also a responsibility to follow our laws and to respect other people's safety, freedom and dignity.

Madam Speaker! Sweden has already previously tightened the rules on deportation due to crime. It was important but not sufficient. The government has therefore proceeded with new, sharper rules so that more foreigners who commit crimes can be deported.

The core of the proposal is that crimes shall, as a general rule, be grounds for deportation already when the sentenced penalty is more severe than a fine, that the balancing between reasons for and against deportation in more cases shall result in exactly deportation, that the qualified special rules for persons who arrive before the age of 15 are removed, and that execution obstacles shall no longer be considered by the court in connection with the criminal case. These are decisive changes.

The problem for a long time has not been that Swedish law has lacked possibilities to deport on the grounds of crime, but rather that these possibilities have all too often been too narrow, too unclear, and applied too defensively. In practice, people have been able to commit crimes that others rightly perceive as disqualifying the right to stay in our country, without deportation coming into question to the extent that it reasonably should apply.

Madam Speaker! The Government is now stating clearly that this order is not sufficient. If one commits a crime in Sweden, the starting point, as stated, must be significantly more powerful consequences than before. If one has no constitutionally protected right to stay here, society must react sharply if one attacks other people, breaks the law, and abuses the hospitality in the country in which one has been given the opportunity to live.

What do the proposals mean in practice? I have mentioned them briefly, and they have been presented clearly by my colleagues earlier. I am thinking of our colleagues in the Committee on Defence who are waiting for their turn and quickly move on to briefly mentioning a particularly important part of this work.

The question of deportation must be examined in more cases. Therefore, we are now moving forward with the line that prosecutors shall be obliged to demand deportation when the crime in itself is a ground for deportation. Today, too much has depended on whether the issue has been driven sufficiently consistently in the individual case. The result has been variations that are difficult to explain and defend. Identical cases have been treated differently.

If the conditions for deportation exist, the court will, of course, examine the issue, not because it is politically impactful in itself, but because the rule of law requires consistency. It is also for that reason that the assessment is that significantly more applications for deportation will be examined going forward.

Those who react against this must answer a very simple question: Why should the prosecutor not demand deportation when the conditions of the law are met? Why should society accept that the issue in practice sometimes falls between the cracks even though the crime is so serious that it should be prosecuted? It is totally disrespectful towards the crime victims.

Madam Speaker! This is largely about the crime victims. All too often, the debate on deportation due to crime has become strangely abstract. Much is said about systems, principles, and the perpetrator's situation, and far too little about the one who is affected – the woman who has been subjected to a brutal sexual crime, the child whose safety has been shattered, the elderly person who has been robbed, and the honest citizen who has seen their area taken over by people who commit crimes, threaten witnesses, and make everyday life unsafe. For them, it appears completely unreasonable that someone who is not even a citizen of the country should be able to commit crimes and still be allowed to stay. It is precisely for that reason that this legislation was needed.

The State has a duty to stand on the side of those who obey the law, to protect society and to signal that those who abuse the right to stay here actually risk losing it. We are tightening the rules because it is necessary. We do it because crimes must have clearer consequences. We do it because the crime victims deserve better. I move for approval of the committee's proposal.

(Applause)

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(A decision was to be taken on 16 June.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)