The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015/2016 Part 14: The New "Waiting Times Calculator", the April 2016 Prognosis Report, and a quick update on Maintenance Requirements

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been a bit overwhelmed by life lately.  Settling into a new home that we are in the throes of remodeling by hand, trying to go through all the steps to get my PN and register for SFI, rushing off to pre-natal doctors appointments, trying to keep the spreadsheet in order... it's been insane.

But also, things were rather quiet on the Migrationsverket front; the waiting times were getting *slight longer* (decisions were coming through at around 13.5-14 months, instead of 13-14 months) and interview emails were following the same organized pace, so there wasn't much beyond the Sambo Summary to really publish.

BUT.  Things have now changed.  So, here it goes:



1.  Interview Emails - Forecast for the Future

At the time of this writing (28 April 2016), MV has finished sending emails out to 2015 applications and seems to have significantly slowed down (possibly stopped??) sending the emails out to 2016 applications.

There was a girl in the I Väntan På Familjen facebook group who had said she spoke to MV customer service and they said they would not be stopping with interview emails, so we will have to wait and see.  One thing is for certain - they are definitely not going at the pace they were for 2015 applications.

The website waiting time calculator (continued in #2, below) now indicates that "older cases are being prioritized for decisions.  MV said this last year when they stopped sending out interview emails in favor of focusing on delivering decisions to cases that were "older than 8 months".  Already we have seen a jump in the decision statistics on the spreadsheet in comparison to how many we saw delivered each week prior to them slowing down with the interview emails. Here is what the new notification says:

2.  The New "Waiting Times Calculator" on MV's Website

MV rolled out a new feature on their website which, in my opinion, is both smart and an utter waste.  In this engine, you put in basic details of your case and it will spit out an estimated waiting time based off of other cases with similar details.

New Waiting Time estimator can be found on MV's website homepage.

There are a couple flaws with this.  First of all, the option in the form which asks "Has the Swedish Migration Agency asked you to send in more information?" is very misleading.  Almost all cases are requested to be supplemented at the time of the interview (photographs, flight stubs, etc.) As we have observed, this normal form of supplemental information ("komplettering") has no affect on delaying your waiting time.  None whatsoever.  There is, however, a secondary form of komplettering that can come toward the end of the normal waiting time when a case officer picks up the file, reads all the info and content and interview notes, and *still* has questions.  They may request more info, they may request one's passport be renewed, and they may even call in the Swedish counterpart to do an interview.  These forms of komplettering do have varying impacts on the wait time.  Many people panic when they say more info was requested (referring to the interview komplettering) and see an extended wait time.  I think this is a flaw in the system and it should be much more descriptive to decipher between normal and abnormal komplettering, or at least to create different categories of what type of info was requested.

Secondly, another flaw is that the waiting times are based off of cases with similar information, however only the most basic of information is requested to complete the form.  Suppose, for instance, that you come from a country where fake/forged marriages are rather commonplace and thrown together quickly to assist in getting someone out of one country and into Sweden.  But suppose you are not married - or instead, have been married a long time and have children and there is no question to the validity of your marriage.  The waiting time estimator may suggest that your waiting time will be 15-18 months because in those statistics are a variety of cases that had complicated details to them.  However your case is not complicated and, thus, would expect a decision within the normal time frame.  Conversely, suppose you come from a stable first world country where issues in the application are not commonplace; however, you have some complicated details.  Suppose your divorce is not final, or you have applied to bring your child with you but consent from the child's other custodian was not offered.  Or, suppose you cannot prove you have met your partner often enough in person to suggest the relationship is serious.  All of these issues could cause your application to take more time to process, even though the waiting time estimator suggests that your wait will be only 11-13 months.

As with everything, the details of each case play a huge role in how long you will wait.  The most crucial factors to all cases are 1) your paperwork is clear, translated (if necessary), and in order; and 2) you can prove the seriousness of your relationship, most particularly with ongoing and accumulated time spent together in person.  If you have these two things down, you can guarantee yourself a normal (or even quick!) waiting time.

Still, I give much credit to MV for creating this engine, because it provides transparency and does align with our spreadsheet and the waiting times we have been quoting for a long time now.

3.  Decisions and Waiting Times

Despite large increases in waiting times that MV recently published in it's waiting time generator (for example, the increase from 13-14 months for US citizens, to 14-17 months as it says now), they are still holding steady although I would say the spread is widening a bit. I would say decisions are more coming between 12-14 months for normal cases, with an emphasis on 13.5-14 month waiting times. The most common waiting time is still 13.5 months, and at the time of this writing, the main trend is for early March 2015 applications to be receiving their decisions.

4.  April 2016 Prognosis Report and 
MV issued it's quarterly migration forecast (click here for PDF link) yesterday.  The most pertinent pages to us are pages "39(55)" and "40(55)" (numbered on the document), as well as the "Bilaga 2" chart in the back appendix.

There is not much "new news" here.  They forecast that waiting times will increase throughout the second half of 2016 as the new maintenance requirements law goes into place - it will be a learning curve on how to analyze cases properly, review and reject applications that no longer meet the criteria, and also answer a mass of emails and phone calls about the new rules.  But otherwise, everything is "hard to predict".

They say that because of this forecast increase in waiting times, they intend to hire new personnel in 2017, but it is unclear how they will distribute the personnel; it will depend on which areas of the bureau "need them most".

In the appendix at the back, it appears that the April 2016 forecast for number of annual applications submitted between 2016 - 2020 is somewhat static (although some numbers increased for family reunification), but there was a huge jump in the forecast of number of open (undecided upon) cases in 2017 - they are projecting over double the number of cases come 2017 to not have a decision yet compared to their previous forecast in February 2016.  This is likely a factor of estimating how bad the queue might get for people who apply around or after maintenance requirements come into effect.

5.  An Update on Maintenance Requirements
According to recent reports, it sounds as though the law to impose maintenance requirements on Swedish citizens who wish to reunite with their family members has been moved from "affecting cases submitted on or after 31 May 2016" to "....20 July 2016".  However, at the time of this writing, MV's website still quotes the original date of 31 May 2016, which was on the original proposed bill (link to MV's page where they discuss this can be found by clicking here -- it is the last paragraph in the article, the rest pertains only to asylum seekers.)  However, the link to Sweden's government home page that discusses this, says the law is now scheduled to go into force on 20 July 2016.  The link to that page can be found by clicking here.

Until the government meets, amends the bill (if necessary), puts it to vote and passes it, we really will not know all the details of when it will go into place, who it will affect, and how.  So, we'll keep our finger on the pulse of this (and all the other developments) as the summer approaches and passes.
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This is all for now!