Sweden's right-wing government has proposed suggestions for more stringent regulations regarding family immigration and limited possibilities for residence permits based on humanitarian grounds.
The announcement was made by Maria Malmer Stenergard, Migration Minister, and Mattias Bäckström Johansson, party secretary for the far-right Sweden Democrats, at a recent press conference.
-- The government and the Sweden Democrats continue to advocate tougher immigration legislation, said Bäckström Johansson, party secretary of the Sweden Democrats, at a press conference.
-- The proposals aim to reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving in Sweden, he added.
To further restrict entry, the bill seeks to make it more difficult to obtain residence permits on humanitarian grounds, which the government says should be seen as part of the "paradigm shift" it wants to implement in migration policy.
To this end, the bill proposes to raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 for refusing a residence permit to a spouse or partner.
The opposition criticized the proposals as another sign of far-right influence on Swedish immigration policy.