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🇸🇪 Sweden /Culture & Society

78-year-old Briton faces deportation from Sweden after 20 years

From Svenska Dagbladet · () Swedish

Translated from Swedish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources In the courts
  • Joyce Thomas, a 78-year-old British woman who has lived in Sweden for more than 20 years, faces deportation unless a legal obstacle to enforcement takes effect.
  • Her difficulties began after the United Kingdom left the European Union, and Sweden’s Migration Agency rejected her residence application.
  • Her friend says a lawyer is seeking an enforcement barrier, which he called their last hope.

Joyce Thomas, a 78-year-old British woman who has lived in Sweden for more than 20 years, faces deportation unless a legal application stops the order from being carried out.

Her friend Felix Andler told Dagens Nyheter that a lawyer was working to obtain what Swedish authorities call an enforcement barrier. “We have a lawyer fighting to obtain an enforcement barrier. It is our last hope,” he said.

Thomas’s difficulties began after the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2021. She and her husband, who died of cancer in 2023, investigated whether they needed to take steps to remain in Sweden, where their children and grandchildren live.

We have a lawyer fighting to obtain an enforcement barrier. It is our last hope.

· Felix AndlerThomas’s friend described the legal effort to prevent her deportation.

After a trip in 2022, Thomas learned that she should have applied for permission to stay. She submitted an application, but Sweden’s Migration Agency rejected it, The Guardian reported.

“I am in shock. I feel sick. A life is at stake at my age. It is hell,” Thomas, a retired nurse, told The Guardian in August as she prepared to leave Sweden. The report said her case is not unique, citing another British man, aged 34, who was deported after living in Sweden since he was 10.

I am in shock. I feel sick. A life is at stake at my age. It is hell.

· Joyce ThomasThe retired nurse described her situation to The Guardian while preparing to leave Sweden.
About this summary

Originally published by Svenska Dagbladet in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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