Hur tänker du försörja dig? – En studie av försörjningskravet vidanhöriginvandring 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 requirement, 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.