'Sweden doesn't want me to stay here, but it doesn't want me to leave either'
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Mahmut* grew up in Turkey and completed his bachelor degree there before moving to the US for further study, eventually graduating with a PhD.
"After two years I went back to Turkey to work," he tells The Local. "Then after another two years, in 2013, the political problems started."
Mahmut was formerly a member of the Gülen movement, led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen.
The Gülen movement was originally allied with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prior to 2013. The alliance broke down after a prosecutor linked to the Gülen movement revealed serious governmental corruption. Erdogan responded by declaring it a terror movement, and blamed it for an attempted 2016 coup.
Since then, many of the movement's members ‒ current and former ‒ have become refugees elsewhere.
"I actually wasn't even living in Turkey at the time, but the coup and what happened in the aftermath really impacted all Turkish citizens globally," Mahmut explains.
In 2016, his father was kidnapped by Turkish authorities while working outside Turkey.
Mahmut realised quickly that Turkey had also issued an arrest warrant for him, and that he was no longer safe, even despite the fact he was living in a different country, so he decided to move to Sweden with his family.
"We came to Sweden in 2017 and then I applied for asylum right away, because my passport was cancelled so I couldn't live in Sweden and apply for a work permit," he says.
He found a job within a month of arrival.
"I knew English and I had a PhD, so I've been working since then. I've been paying a lot of taxes," he says. He currently earns more than double Sweden's median salary in a tech role with a major Swedish company.
Despite leaving the movement some years ago he cannot return to Turkey as there are still multiple ongoing investigations against him.
Mahmut has had regular contact with the Migration Agency since arriving in Sweden in 2017. Photo: Susanne Lindholm/TT
In Sweden, the first immigration hurdle the family encountered was a law change which tightened up the rules for permanent residency, meaning that families no longer qualified as a whole if one member of the family met the requirements.
"I was working and my wife was learning Swedish, so because of that law we thought that 'OK, maybe I can continue working and my wife can learn Swedish first. And we decided to have a second child. But then the law changed and I got permanent residency but my wife couldn't get it because she wasn't working. So that was the first issue we had," he said.
His wife decided to apply for a long-term residency permit under EU rules instead, a status known in Swedish as varaktigt bosatt.
Shortly after he received permanent residency in 2021, he applied for citizenship along with his eldest daughter.
"She was eight years old and got her Swedish citizenship after a month," he said. "But I didn't get my citizenship."
READ ALSO: Swedish Migration Agency and government slammed over 'unreasonably' long citizenship queues
Four years later, he's still waiting.
"My second child was born in 2020 and she was given residency for three years, and then we applied to extend it in 2023. We have refugee status, and I can't really go to the Turkish embassy here, so my daughter was actually stateless. She didn't have Turkish citizenship, so had no ID at all because she didn't have a Turkish passport or identity card, and her refugee passport expired when her residency expired."
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At the beginning of 2024, he started to become more suspicious about the fact that there was no movement in his case.
"It had been almost two years since I applied for citizenship, almost two years since my wife applied for varaktig bosatt, and almost one year since my daughter applied for residence extension. I exchanged a lot of emails with the Migration Agency and they weren't really responding, just saying 'every case is unique'."
In the meantime, a lot of Turkish citizens he knew in the same position – including his family members who had also sought asylum in Sweden – were having their applications approved.
"My sister applied for citizenship around the same time, in 2021, but she got hers approved within seven months. My other sister and brother got theirs in eight or nine months, which was really weird – especially as I had been working for longer."
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His family were effectively stranded in Sweden during this time, as his daughter did not have any ID or a valid residency permit. After speaking to a lawyer, he was told that he could order a dagboksblad, essentially a log of his family's case files from the Migration Agency.
Once those were sent over, he discovered that not only was his application referred to Säpo, Sweden's security police, but so were both of his wife's applications.
The head offices of Sweden's Security Police (Säpo) in Solna. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT
In addition to that, there were multiple lines of redacted information from his daughter's application. She was four years old at the time.
He asked his caseworker for more information on why his application had been sent to Säpo, and received a document saying that they had requested it because they thought he might be involved in terrorist activities or a threat to national security.
"That was really shocking," he said. "It was really a nightmare. When I found out about this, I really went into a depression. From the beginning of 2024 until the end of that year I was speaking to two psychiatrists."
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His situation has not only taken a mental toll, but also a physical one.
"I've been dealing with lots of problems. I've been going to hospitals, had a colonoscopy, endoscopy, but they cannot diagnose what's wrong. But I have a lot of stomach pain. I can't leave home because when I get on a bus or in a car my blood pressure drops and I've passed out a couple of times. It caused serious hell because again, I don't think I deserve this."
At the end of last year, his youngest daughter's residency application was finally approved, and then they applied for Swedish citizenship for her, which was also granted. His wife was also finally granted permanent residency. Mahmut is still waiting for his own citizenship application to go through, despite Säpo writing in a previous application that they had no comments, or in Swedish ej erinran, on his case.
He has not been asked to show his passport or ID card, nor been sent a questionnaire of further questions to fill out.
READ ALSO: The extra security questions Sweden's Migration Agency wants citizenship applicants to answer
"When I spoke to my caseworker, they claimed that they are actually still waiting for approval from another government organisation. They already have approval from Säpo, so I asked them what kind of organisation they are waiting for approval from, and they said that they cannot name it."
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Säpo press secretary Jonathan Svensson confirmed to The Local that Säpo is "one of the authorities which the Migration Agency consults".
"Somewhat simplified, the Security Police have the possibility of leaving a comment, for example in cases where someone has applied for a residence permit or citizenship, if we think the person in question could be a security threat," he said.
"The Security Police can also be consulted even if the person in question has previously been granted a residence permit."
Svensson added that he was not able to give more specific information on how the two agencies collaborate.
At this time, Mahmut was discussing his case with journalist Joakim Medin, from Dagens ETC – the same Medin who in 2025 was arrested and detained in Turkey for over a month after he had travelled to Istanbul to report on protests against the jailing of the city's mayor.
Medin revealed in an article in July 2024 that the Migration Agency had sent residence permit and citizenship applications from Gülenists to the Foreign Ministry during Sweden's Nato accession process, citing the fact that approvals could affect Sweden's relations with Turkey.
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Mahmut has many contacts with Gülenist refugees in Sweden who have fled Turkey. He has previously worked together with the Migration Agency to help refugees in his situation seek asylum in Sweden, meeting with Migration Agency leadership multiple times to tell them about the situation for members of the Gülen movement.
His information has also provided the Migration Agency with background for legal positions made when handling cases involving current or former Gülenists.
The Migration Agency confirmed to The Local that it does have to send some applications to the Foreign Ministry, but that it wasn't able to provide statistics on which nationalities or countries were affected.
"The Migration Agency does, like other government agencies, have to inform the head of the Foreign Ministry when issues arise that could affect the relationship to another state or an international organisation," Rebecka Paulusson, a press communicator at the agency, told The Local.
"The type of issue which could affect our relationship with another state can vary over time depending on external factors. The type of situation (or issue) in question can also vary. Typically, it concerns the decision we expect to make in a certain case, but it could also be another initiative or change in the management of the agency or its working methods."
Paulusson added that in the first half of this year (including incomplete figures for June), the agency informed the Foreign Ministry about applications in 36 cases – 25 applications for residency permits and 11 for citizenship.
Sweden's foreign ministry is located on Gustav Adolfs torg in Stockholm. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT
The Local also contacted the Foreign Ministry for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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Mahmut believes, after all this, that his name is "on a list somewhere", as he was also flagged for a background check when changing career – unlike other non-EU colleagues.
"During this extra security interview, after talking about why I was a refugee, the person asked me if anyone threatens me or my family to release secret information. I was really shocked. They asked me 'if someone offers you a lot of money, would you give out secret information', and I realised that she was questioning me and trying to understand if I was a spy."
He passed the background check and was offered the job, but is concerned that the issue will follow him in the future.
"I think I've been profiled by Säpo and I'm going to face this problem forever. There's no progress in my citizenship application because of this. I can't become a citizen."
Mahmut is considering leaving Sweden but is effectively trapped in the country.
"I don't have a Turkish passport because it's been cancelled by Turkey. I can't become a Swedish citizen. I have a refugee passport, so I can move to another country, but even if I do that I need to fill in some paperwork and in order to do that paperwork I need to have a valid passport. So Sweden doesn't want me to stay here, but it doesn't want me to leave either."
"I feel like I'm trapped. And I'm really tired of this."
*Note: Mahmut is not his real name.
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