"Finnish Immigration Service Migri announced on Friday that it will temporarily suspend decision-making regarding rejected residence permits for Palestinians.

Yle News reported on Thursday that Fayez Bassalat, a Palestinian project engineer, received a deportation notice from Migri last month.

The decision to deport Bassalat followed a change to section 35 of Finland's immigration laws last year, which introduced a general requirement for a valid national travel document.

"The requirement for a 'national document' was not there before," Johanna Waal, Migri's Director, Legal and Specialist Services Unit, told Yle News in an interview on Thursday.

Under Migri's interpretation, as Finland has not recognised the state of Palestine, Palestinian passports are not considered valid national travel documents.

Migri told Yle News on Thursday that it is now reconsidering the interpretation. "Whether our discussion leads to changes in practice is not yet possible to predict," Waal had added."

by FinnishAlien

6 comments

  1. It’s an extremely shitty policy, as are many of their policies.

    All political policies should require real world common sense litmus testing. If it doesn’t pass, they need to start over with better staff. They need to get fired like everyone else for shitty working methods.

  2. It is super shitty to retroactively change someones decision. Personally I like the requirement for a national document, because of what happened 2015 in Sweden. But yes this is an ugly situation all together.

  3. While migri are scratching their heads thinking “whatever will we do?” for the indefinite future, what happens to the people from these countries? They just get stuck in limbo? 

  4. Migri is not fit for purpose – it has been broken for a long, long time.

  5. Really eye opening situation. What would happen if, in the future, Ukraine gets so damaged by Rusia that it starts to force countries to stop recognizing Ukraine as an independent territory.

    Will they also deport them?

    This is a dangerous slippery slope.

  6. Honestly these legally stateless people should be transferred to prospective refugee status and dealt accordingly – Fayez would be granted indefinite residence, just like anyone else who just lives their life here.

Comments are closed.