Hur tänker du försörja dig? En studie av försörjningskravet vid anhöriginvandring och av rättsliga kontroll- och sållningsmekanismer under nyanlända personers etablering i Sverige

Since 2010, family member immigration in Sweden is subject to a maintenance
requirement. This means that a person living in Sweden, the sponsor(s),
must be able to support themselves and the members of their family who are
applying for residence permits. The maintenance requirement can be regarded
as an instrument that, along with other regulations, determines who can and should belong to the nation as an imagined community. Through the require-
ment, certain behaviours and choices of the sponsor that relate to employment are rewarded while other behaviours and choices are disqualified. In most
cases involving the maintenance requirement, the sponsors have previously
immigrated themselves. Therefore, in addition to the requirement, many
sponsors are, or have been, subject to other “integration” laws and policies. This
article examines how the maintenance requirement is applied in the Swedish
migration courts. The results are compared with ideas about the economic
future of newly arrived individuals, as expressed in the Swedish government’s
policy on introduction for newly arrived individuals. I identify discrepancies in
ideas about “acceptable” behaviours and choices of newly arrived individuals.
While the government’s introduction policy is characterized by neoliberal
ideals of flexibility, adaptability, capacity for self-improvement and learning,
such behaviours are disqualified in the courts’ application of the maintenance
requirement. By forcing newly arrived individuals that want to reunite with
their families to take on certain behaviours, the maintenance requirement can
reinforce power imbalances in the labour market, as well as social and economic
inequalities.