Sweden's parliament is returning for a special summer session on August 12th and August 13th to vote through 13 bills that the government would otherwise not manage to pass before the end of its parliamentary term.
On the family reunion bill, on which parliament will vote on August 13th, the four opposition parties – the Social Democrats, the Centre Party, the Left Party, and the Green Party – have agreed to unite around two proposals.
The first is a Social Democrat motion filed last month which would impose a shorter (one-year, instead of of two-year) waiting period before foreigners in Sweden can bring relatives. The second is a Green Party motion to scrap a clause in the government's bill requiring foreigners to meet housing and self-sufficiency requirements when renewing family reunion permits.
READ ALSO: Swedish government announces stricter requirements for family immigration
Annika Hirvonen, migration spokesperson for the Green Party, said that if the opposition succeeds in defeating the government on the two proposals, it would prevent unnecessary hardship for countless families.
"If the law is passed the way the government has put it forward, families that already live together in Sweden are going to be torn apart, and that is unacceptable," she said, of the proposed introduction of a maintenance and housing requirement for extending family reunion permits.
"Families will not feel safe in Sweden until they are Swedish citizens, because there is no permanent residency anymore [for asylum-seekers]. So they will live in fear," she added. "This will have impact, of course, on mental health, but also on people's ability to claim their rights with employers, because their employers will have power over whether their children are able to stay in the country."
When it came to the proposed two-year waiting period, she argued that it was in practice a four-year waiting period as it would only start, according to the government's proposals, from the moment a foreigner is granted residency. The opposition hopes to change this to the moment of application.
"Delaying reunification with your family has huge humanitarian consequences, it goes against the basic human right to live with your family, and it's especially damaging for children. But it also has has very concrete negative impacts on integration," she argued.
For one or both of the two opposition motions to pass, it will need to win the support of all opposition MPs and also of at least two of the four Liberal Party MPs who have said they are retiring from national politics after the election in September.
While Hirvonen said she had not held discussions with any of the Liberal MPs, she said was hopeful that they might join with the opposition.
"If there was no outside pressure, I feel very certain that a lot of them would vote with us," she said. "It's going to be very much up to the strength of these people's consciences and whether they can withstand pressure from their parties. It will, after all, be for some of them the very last vote of their entire political careers."
The Local has contacted the Social Democrats to confirm that they plan to unite between the Green Party proposal and will update this article when we get a response.