Welders are in short supply.
Not least at the energy giant Hitachi in Ludvika.
Now one of the company’s employees is to be deported due to new rules.
Samim Sultani, 26, regrets spending ten years here.
– In Sweden, only criminals are allowed to stay, he says.
The article in brief
Samir Sultani, 26, came to Sweden alone in 2015. The “Gymnasielagen” made it possible for him to attend high school in Sweden. He is Hazara, a persecuted ethnic group, and has distanced himself from Islam, which is frowned upon by the Taliban regime.
After high school, Sultani has supported herself through work. When he applied for a permanent residence permit in 2022, he was refused because he did not have a permanent job at the time.
In 2023, he received permanent employment as a licensed welder at Hitachi, but now the rules have changed and he is to be deported. Unfortunate, says the CEO of the company.
Migration Minister Johan Forssell tells Expressen that it is important that hard work pays off, but also that authority requirements are followed.
Samim Sultani, 26, left Afghanistan when he was nine years old. The situation was untenable for his ethnic group, the Hazaras. Together with his parents and siblings, he fled to Iran.
Today his father has disappeared, he says. The mother and siblings remain in Iran. Samim Sultani came to Sweden in 2015. He is an atheist and lives a western life.
Now he will be deported.
– I came to Sweden alone. I started the journey in the middle of 2014, over Turkey and Bulgaria among others. I was on the road for three or four months.
At the time, the high school law applied and he had to stay in Sweden to acquire high school qualifications.
So he got a permanent job as a licensed welder at the international technology giant Hitachi in Ludvika.
– I liked working at Hitachi. It is the best company I have come in contact with. It’s a big company, so you can fight and move up. Further education.
Hitachi has a shortage of welders, especially here in Ludvika, where Samim Sultani worked.
Photo: Jonas Bilberg / Hitachi Press Bild
Dagens Arbete wrote about Samim Sultani in September. At the time, he was still working at Hitachi, but knew that his days were numbered.
Not because his skills are not needed.
Welders are in short supply in Sweden, as more people retire than are newly trained, according to the industry organization Svetskommissionen.
But when Samim Sultani applied for a permanent residence permit in 2022, he had not yet found a permanent job. Therefore he was rejected.
By then his case had been time-barred and he again applied for asylum. Two jurors wanted to let him stay, the judge and one juror did not.
– But then the possibility of a track change ended and then it was done, says his lawyer Per Gisslén.
“The government wants to streamline return operations,” says Migration Minister Johan Forssell, M, about the new rules that came into effect on April 1.
Photo: SVEN LINDWALL
Samim Sultani states that the Swedish attitude has fluctuated greatly.
– I have struggled for ten years, I have tried to get up. Now I am zero, because of politics.
– Imagine that you are standing on a chair. Then someone else comes and kicks the chair. Then you fall. That’s my situation.
Hitachi CEO: Unfortunate
Even for the technology and energy giant Hitachi, the expulsion hits hard. Welders are difficult to recruit, especially in smaller towns like Ludvika.
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Politics should have a dialogue with business, says CEO Tobias Hansson.
– It is very unfortunate when highly valued and appreciated employees, who also work within the shortage, are at risk of being deported.
– Such situations are not only devastating for the individuals concerned, but also for the companies and the industry as a whole,” says the Hitachi CEO in a text message to Expressen.
Per Gisslén, a lawyer, believes that the rules for re-migration should be able to be tightened without putting individuals in a bind. “You want them to be integrated. They do right by themselves, work, pay taxes. And then they pull the rug out,” he says.
Photo: Gisslén and Löfroth Law Firm
But Migration Minister Johan Forssell thinks that the dialogue with business is good enough.
– Last winter, for example, I took the initiative for a business council that could put forward nine concrete proposals for how Sweden can become better at attracting foreign talent and experts, he writes in an SMS to Expressen.
He points out that the track change has received criticism from several authorities and can lead to wage dumping and exploitation.
– The government therefore proposed to abolish the rules with track changes, a proposal that also received broad support in Sweden’s Riksdag, writes Forssell.
He refutes Samim Sultani’s criticism that integration does not pay off.
– For me as a Moderate, it is important that diligence and hard work pay off. At the same time, it is also important that we have a system where the decisions made by our authorities are also complied with in practice, he says.
Samim Sultani wishes with hindsight that he had not chosen Sweden as a 14-year-old.
– If I had fought this much in Germany or France, then I would have had to stay, he says.
– They need people who work there. In Sweden, only criminals are allowed to stay.
