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He laughs at the thought of the first time they congratulated him. That’s when he turned 24. Sanna and Per came with cake, song, and gifts. Hanif had never seen anything like it.
– Of the more than 30 million Afghans who exist, hardly anyone knows what a birthday is, says Hanif Qasemi, now in his twenty-ninth year of life.
Then it just works A few minutes before the family that taught her to celebrate loses control of her emotions. They usually stick together, for Hanif’s sake, says Per Duregård, but when asked right away how he feels that his family will soon be divided, tears well up.
– I really thought everything was ready. Hanif has been so sincere, so serious, he really tried to do everything right. I never thought something like this could happen, says Sanna Ingelstam-Duregård.
“Hanif has tried to do everything right,” says Sanna Ingelstam-Duregård. Husband Per thinks that the requirements of the Swedish Immigration Board are unreasonable.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
The story begins, as for many other Afghan men in Sweden, in the fall of 2015. Hanif Qasemi has studied law in his home country and is therefore a grown man when he flees here.
– I was born in 1992, but I left the date blank when I filled out my asylum application. I honestly replied that I don’t know what day I was born. Then the administrator said that he would write today’s date and that it would be my birthday.
It was December 22.
Less than five years in Sweden Has that date worked? The Swedish asylum process accepts that people may have been forced to flee without full documents. But Swedish banks also trust those figures. For many years, Hanif Qasemi has supported himself in the care of the elderly and as a permanent employee in a residence in Askim, the monthly salary goes into an account linked to the Swedish birthday.
“He has his eyes,” says one of Hanif Qasemi’s colleagues during DN’s visit to Granliden. Working in elderly care is something he really wants to do, he says himself.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
– My colleagues probably think that I have a permanent residence permit. They send me to higher education and count on me, he says.
While the residents of Granliden’s dementia ward stay in the dining room after coffee, Hanif checks that the rooms are all right. Smooth into a quilt. Turn off a light. He is extremely careful at work and a colleague says in passing that he “has his eyes.”
Sanna Ingelstam-Duregård, who has had Hanif Qasemi as a resident since November 2016, agrees. She is the principal of a high school and thinks her attitude is quite unique.
– That manpower is scarce. Not many young people want to work in caring for the elderly and I have really seen how he cares for those who live there. At first you had many questions, Sanna tells Hanif, you wondered why they did not live at home and why their families did not come to visit more. I really wonder if that could be the intention of the legislator. That you are going out.
The permanent job at the Granliden nursing home is now threatened by the birthday date, which Hanif Qasemi never asked for.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
Since last summer, Hanif Qasemi no longer seeks asylum in Sweden. It has been rejected. Now, instead, he wants a work permit, because he has a steady job, and that is when the birthday has become problematic.
In the rejection that came On March 9, the Swedish Migration Agency writes that Hanif Qasemi cannot prove his identity. You have presented a valid Afghan passport, and the agency does not dispute that it is a genuine basic document, but the passport is issued with a traditional Afghan identity document, no date of birth, and with “the information of birth declared by the Agency. Swedish Migration Agency “. and therefore “the reliability of the information in the passport is questioned.”
Hanif Qasemi’s birthday never asked, but that it worked for all other connections during her five years in Sweden is now considered untrustworthy by the same authority that once gave it to her.
The Swedish DN Migration Agency’s explanation of how this can happen is complicated and requires discussions with several different units within the agency, but the short and simplified summary is that the identity requirements in the various processes differ.
– One of the conditions for obtaining a work permit is that the identity is accredited, unlike asylum when it is sufficient to make identity probable. Therefore, there is a stricter proof requirement for work permits, says Frederik Abbemo, press communicator for the Swedish Immigration Board.
Per Duregård thinks that such an arrangement seems reasonable, in principle.
– I understand that the demands are higher for someone who wants to work here than for a refugee fleeing for his life. If, for example, someone is in Lithuania and thinks it might be fun to try out the Swedish job market, I understand the rules, but it’s here!
Sanna Ingelstam-Duregård, Hanif Qasemi and Per Duregård have been a family since 2016. This week they may be forced to separate.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
Per turns to Hanif, whom he has come to regard as a son. They met at the church where Per worked as a pastor in a business that Hanif Qasemi was looking for as a newcomer.
– I met a lot of people during that time, says Per, but only Hanif is our boy.
That the passport is not enough As proof of identity, the Gothenburg family finds it strange. Of course, it says a fictitious birthday there, but it is no secret where it comes from, and the Afghan embassy, however, has had no doubts about the authenticity of Hanif Qasemi.
Sanna Ingelstam-Duregård’s conclusion is that, in principle, it seems impossible for an Afghan citizen to do the right thing in the Swedish process.
– A documented birthday is a criterion that cannot be met, it will be indirect discrimination, he says.
Hanif Qasemi appealed the decision to deny her a work permit.
Read more news from Gothenburg here
