Åkesson cannot rewrite the teenage deportations out of his record

Jimmie Åkesson wants credit for changing Sweden. He owes an account of what that change cost the young people forced to leave their families behind. His latest account of the Tidö years finds room for his party’s achievements and frustrations, but none for the suffering of the teenagers whose lives those policies upended.

In his Expressen article of 8 October, the Sweden Democrats’ leader presents SD as the driving force behind the governing partnership. Other parties took the credit; cooperation constrained his own. He finishes by promising to stand with families, children and the vulnerable. Teenage deportations receive no mention.

Jimmie Åkesson cannot simply rewrite history as he emerges from the jaws of electoral defeat. A leader claiming authorship of the migration crackdown cannot leave its human consequences outside the frame.

Consider Doniyor. In August, Aftonbladet reported that the 19-year-old had been sent to Uzbekistan after six years in Sweden. His parents and brother remained here. He had applied to extend his permit at 16, but the decision took more than two years. By then, he was legally an adult and no longer qualified as a child through his father.

He was studying vehicle mechanics in Stockholm. His placement workshop valued him. His classmates returned for their final year without him. He described stress during the appeals process and losing seven kilos in a few months.

Here was a young person learning Swedish, training for work and building a life. His removal broke the continuity of an education and separated a family. Those consequences deserve a place in any honest assessment of the policies Åkesson celebrates.

The responsibility extends beyond SD. The Migration Agency identifies successive changes: the 2021 shift making temporary permits the norm, followed by the removal of a humanitarian provision in 2023. The machinery predates Tidö. Earlier governments must answer for their part.

But the 2023 decision belongs squarely in Åkesson’s reckoning. It removed the possibility for certain established adults to qualify under the lower threshold of particularly distressing circumstances, leaving the stricter exceptional threshold. The government’s bill explicitly records that its proposals rested on an agreement with the Sweden Democrats. It also records demands from the Swedish Red Cross and others for closer examination of the consequences for young adults who had received permits as children.

The risk was on the record. Political responsibility cannot end at the moment the law reaches someone’s kitchen table.

Nor was Doniyor an isolated case in the reporting. Aftonbladet’s August investigation identified 121 young people issued deportation decisions in 2025 while their parents could stay. That is a count of decisions, not proof that all 121 had left Sweden. Even before removal, such a decision puts family life and plans for the future in jeopardy.

The subsequent retreat matters. SD joined its partners in backing relief, and new rules took effect on 1 October, expanding routes for young adults to remain with their parents. Qualifying applicants with final deportation decisions can also apply from inside Sweden under temporary provisions. These changes deserve recognition. They cannot restore time already spent apart or automatically repair an interrupted education.

Sweden can regulate migration while taking responsibility for the lives shaped by its rules. Turning 18 does not dissolve a family, and an administrative delay should never become an acceptable explanation for wrecking a young person’s future.

Åkesson should acknowledge SD’s part in the harm, explain what it will do for those still excluded from relief, and support a workable route back for young people already removed. A promise to stand with families means very little while the families split under policies his party helped shape disappear from his account of history.

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