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Swedes from many public sector professions are sounding the alarm over a pending law that would make it mandatory to report unregistered people. The law, also known as the “click law,” is the result of a far-right coalition.
The bill dates back to 2022, when three right-wing parties joined a government coalition, with parliamentary support from the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD). The proposal has now reached the point where it could be implemented into law, possibly before the end of this year.
The bottom line is that under the new law, one million Swedes, from dentists to teachers, will soon be required to report any contact with unregistered patients or students – people without a valid residence document – to the government.
“This proposal is deeply inhumane,” said Michelle Levoy of the human rights organisation BICOM. According to her, the law would force migrants who, for whatever reason, do not have a valid residence document into hiding. They will soon no longer be inclined to seek care, send their children to school or report crimes against them. According to Levoy, people are being deliberately intimidated and the measure is part of a wider European far-right trend to criminalise people without residence documents.
According to Jakob Lind, a postdoctoral researcher in international migration at Malmö University, the law will not make any real difference. According to him, the number of irregular migrants will not decrease, which is the official goal of the law: “Most people don’t leave. They just end up in more misery. You get the opposite effect: society will have less contact with people in this situation, which makes them more vulnerable and more vulnerable to exploitation.”
There is another important reason why the far-right law has little chance of success. Several polls show that many people in the affected professional groups intend to refuse to comply with the click-through. The largest education unions have already declared that civil disobedience is the only way to deal with the law. The Librarians’ Association says that a large part of its supporters would rather lose their jobs than report immigrants: “If the Swedish government continues like this, librarians will be on the right side of history. Ultimately, this is a question of trust, humanity and democracy.”
