Sweden¶
The Swedish case shows a duty to report turning public service counters into points of immigration control. Staff whose job is to serve the public must now identify people they believe lack the right to stay, while professions whose work depends on trust were exempted after protest. Enforcement is spread across agencies whose purpose lies elsewhere, so a register kept for one task is read for another by the people at the counter.
The clerk’s briefs¶
From the clerks, for the Patrician’s eyes
Read these. Undocumented migrants may avoid tax, pension or employment offices and so lose access to what they could still claim, and their employers and landlords may avoid them too. Staff are asked to judge who seems to lack the right to stay, which risks drawing in legal residents who look or sound foreign. The exemptions show the line can move: a later government could widen the duty to schools and hospitals or to other categories of person, and a majority of two votes could equally repeal it.
June 2026: The duty to report¶
On 15 June 2026 the Riksdag passed a law by 174 votes to 172 requiring employees of agencies including the tax authority, the employment service, the social insurance agency and the prison and probation services to notify the police if they encounter migrants who are not authorised to live in the country. Teachers, doctors and social workers were exempted. According to the Riksdag, the duty covers six agencies, including the Enforcement Authority and the Pensions Agency, applies “if there is reason to assume that he or she does not have the right to stay in Sweden”, and came into force on 13 July 2026. The clerks note that every public counter on the list became, by two votes, a point at which a register is read for a second purpose.