Surprises, Fatigue, and Updates On Our Case... oh my!

Surprises

At 8.5 weeks <3

Now that we are close to being out of the "danger zone" I am beyond thrilled to report that I am pregnant!!  Officially 10 weeks and 2 days :) 

This was a planned event; Johan and I have been talking about it for almost a full year. We decided when I was with him for a month over the holidays, that we should give it a try.  Due to a few health factors, I have been told that my chances for natural conception and carrying a pregnancy full term are quite low.  I turn 33 this year and I'll be damned if Migrationsverket takes away our chances of having a child.  My doctors told me it could take years to conceive, so you can imagine our shock when, on my last day before flying home, Johan brought the pregnancy test into the living room with a look of wild shock and shouted, "IT'S POSITIVE!" Ahhhhh what a moment.  He was as pale as a ghost and couldn't stop saying, "What the f*ck? What the f*ck!" in a mixture of shock and excitement and more shock.  I jumped off the couch and grabbed him and starting laughing and crying at the same time and just kept saying, "I knew it! I knew it!!"  We ran all the way in the middle of the night and in a snow storm to the farm next door where Johan's parents live, and declared the happy news.  And then I called my sister while he called his sisters, and it was just... a night I'll never forget.  My sister started to cry instantly, and that whole final night we spent together was magical.  It was exactly our 1-year application anniversary, and now immortalized even more by learning we had created a new human :)

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015/2016 Part 12: The Sambo Summary Publications

UPDATE (16 July2016): As I settle into my new life here in Sweden and enter the final months of my pregnancy, my ability to create the Sambo Summary will continue to decrease.  We have so much going on over here, and it's hard to find time to dedicate to producing these pieces.  Also, I have decreased how involved I am in the support groups (also because of time constraints) and, as such, I will eventually get to the point of not being up to date with all the latest news.  The Maintenance Requirements law will soon go into place (latest update on that is that it will take effect on 21 July 2016) and it will be difficult for me to closely monitor how that will affect overall waiting times in the long term.

Nonetheless, I will continue to do my best to produce these reportssporadically.  So far, we don't see much change in the trends other than that interview emails have started to go out at a normalized pace (about every 4-6 months), and average decision waiting times have actually crept down slightly (by about half a month, give or take).  Everything else is seeming to hold steady.

These reports are PDFs uploaded to Google Drive, and can be downloaded and used as necessary. They are based off of the data we collect and track on  the spreadsheet.

Happy Viewing!

Dreaming of a Decision: Life beyond 12 months of waiting

A lot has happened since I last wrote a "thought piece".  I think one thing that has been super helpful in surviving the past 6 months, has been to remain active in the support groups.  There is something very beautiful about being consoled by perfect strangers who understand exactly what you are going through without you even having to explain it. There is also something very gratifying about helping other people.  It makes you feel useful, and like you're able to bring a little bit of good to a super fucked up situation. 

Maintaining the spreadsheet has taken up a good deal of my idle time, but it's self-serving:  I know it is a powerful tool for other people, but it is extremely meaningful to me as well.  I have no problem confessing that I am a control freak, and the chaos of this sambo process has really pushed me to the edge.  Having the spreadsheet has been a gem to me, to be able to see exactly where we are in the process.  I can't even begin to say how many people were told (after waiting 13 months!) that the wait times are "up to 21 months".  If someone told me that and I didn't have the spreadsheet, I would have just jumped off a bridge right there.  But the spreadsheet says 13-14 months to us still; until that picture changes, I will trust the spreadsheet and invest my feelings and sanity into it alone.

Anyway, I have to say: there has yet to be a more beautiful moment to me in this whole process than celebrating our 1-year application anniversary.  I have read a lot of people mourn this time.  They grieve over how long they have had to wait.  For me, it was such an incredible time to celebrate! I just so happened to be in Sweden celebrating the holidays with my love when our 1-year application anniversary came around, so we were popping champagne and reflecting on what a long journey we have been on, and how happy we are to put one whole year behind us.  Maybe it's because I've been working on the spreadsheet for so long and have known and accepted for a very long while that nothing would happen to our case for 13-14 months; but mostly, it was just knowing that we are closing in on the end. 

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015/2016 Part 11: Can I visit while my permit is processing?

YES.

I am going to share with you now the "real deal" about visiting Sweden while your permit is processing.

It is not "new news" that Migrationsverket can be quite inconsistent with their answers to our questions.  Furthermore, they often times give incorrect information. That has been the single most frustrating part of this experience; it has even been worse than how long the waiting time is.  The constant stress, fear, paranoia, confusion, lack of trust, and inhumanity felt by conflicting and wrong information has made what is already a trying time, unbearably impossible to deal with.

If there is one thing that we can do to help ease the searing pain of separation, it is to be able to visit our loved one. So, let's go through the stages of grief as you research whether you can visit your love while you wait.

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015/2016 Part 10: The Sambo Manual (FAQs and Resources)

Warning: This is an "Information Overload" post!!

It's been some time since I last posted, because I've spent the past month in Sweden with my love for the holidays.  And we just passed a major milestone: 1 year since we applied for my UT!! WOO-HOO!!

For the past 2 months I have been planning my 1-year anniversary post.  I was going to make it all about our memories, things I had learned about myself and the world, sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. :D But let's be real: we all need information right now, so I have put together the following masterpiece: The Sambo Manual.

I have already provided some extensive guides for the beginning part of the Sambo Visa process. You can find the topics at the following links: 

Part 1:  What is the Swedish "Sambo" Visa?

Part 2: The Application Process and Processing Times

Part 4:  The Interview 

Part 7b:  Current Application Timelines Statistics

Part 8: Understanding the New Immigration Laws (including Maintenance Requirements)

Those parts give a very detailed (in most cases) run down of each topic.  Now I would like to summarize some key points, questions, and offer resources for those trying to investigate this process for themselves.  The topics are organized in the following sections, color-coded for ease of identification if you want to scroll to a particular section:

Table of Contents

A.  Key Definitions and Acronyms 

B.  Application Process (including Quick Links)

C.  Overview of Processing Times (and your legal rights)

        1.  Processing Times

        2.  Your legal rights to a timely decision

D.  Technicalities, Loopholes, Options, and Applying for "Priority"

E.  Maintenance Requirements

F.  The Queue System

        1.  How it (is supposed to) work

        2.  "E3" and Technical Failures

G.  The Lifetime of a Residence Permit (from UT to Citizenship and the Appeals Process) 

H.  Supplying "additional information" to MV

I.  Other Resources 

J.  FAQs

Current Refugee Crisis Immigration Statistics (Latest update: 15 March 2016)

This post used to be part of my "New Immigration Rules" post, but that post was getting way too long and sloppy.  So, I have moved everything over here.

Here is just some ongoing information and statistics on the refugee crisis, to help you determine where Sweden (and the rest of Europe) is at in terms of being bogged down by immigration.  It is very important to read the definitions of what a Refugee, someone in need of Subsidiary Protection, and those in need of "Other Protection" are, in order to understand what rights are being granted.  All definitions (as well as the new immigration rules for asylum seekers) can be found in my blog post here.

Current Immigration Statistics - Q4 2015

*Red highlights are just to remind me what numbers need to be updated each quarter when new data is released.  Apologies for the annoyance*

For those of you who are statisticians like me, I pulled some EuroStat reports on the refugee crisis felt among the EU28 member states of the European Union.  Note that these stats are only currently available as of Q4 2015 (which would be as of 31 December 2015).  EuroStat has a 3-month lag, which means that this data was published March 3, but the numbers are only as of 31 December. I will update the info graphs as soon as new ones are available. The links to the EuroStat page are all imbedded in the titles of the charts below, in case you want to look into the source data, footnotes, etc. Click on the images to make them larger, or click the chart title link to be redirected to the source data.

The Swedish Sambo Visa Process in 2015 Part 9: Anomalies & Conspiracy Theories

Well, fuck.

^^If it weren't for the fact that I've learned my blog is useful to some people, I would have probably just ended my post there.  ;) 

Since I use my blog as a diary of sorts, here are the two main updates for me.  Maybe one day I'll reminisce over these sketchy times with a bottle of overly-priced Systemet wine as I re-read these old memories :)

(Important Update on 12 February 2016): The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 8: Explaining the "New Immigration Rules"

NOTE (12  February 2016): For information on the pending "Maintenance Requirement" rules, please kindly navigate to my Swedish Sambo Visa Part 10: The Sambo Manual post , and scroll to Part E. Maintenance Requirements. In that post, you will find all the latest information I could gather on the impending Maintenance Requirements, as well as links to the official governmental proposal and press release which seem to indicate that all sambo applications submitted BEFORE 31 May 2016 will be EXEMPT from the new rules.

Please bear in mind that as of the date of this update, this is still a proposal.  It needs to be discussed, decided upon, and then implemented.  Anything could change.  So, please check back for more information, and still consider to weigh your options just in case the law turns out to affect some cases retroactively.

************************

On 24 November 2015, the Swedish parliament ("Riksdag") convened for a press conference. Therein, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven [Social Democrats / Socialdemokraterna ("S")] and Green Party [Miljöpartiet / ("MP")] co-leader Åsa Romson announced notable updates to the asylum seeking procedures in Sweden.  It was an "historic" day in terms of the controls and limitations they have realized are the only way to save the country from collapse.

The rules do not just affect asylum seekers, but also all relationship applications (like us sambo applicants) as well. Sweden's government homepage (http://www.regeringen.se) has an outline article generalizing the measures. The English version can be found here; the Swedish version (including video of the press conference) can be found here.

In addition, a very brief press release about these measures has been published on MV's website here.  Pay particular attention to the last 2 paragraphs of that article.

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 7b: Application Date Statistics (updated about once every 3 months) - Last update: 30 January 2017

IMPORTANT UPDATE (15 September 2016):  In order for this spreadsheet to remain a relevant resource, I have de-linked the "bigger spreadsheet" where we used to track over 1,000 cases from various sources.  I still have that data if anyone ever wants it for their own research purposes, but due to time constraints I have been unable to continue updating it.

Instead, I have linked up to a new spreadsheet maintained by the I Väntan På Familjen facebook admins.  While that groups is somewhat small, it is very diverse and a good microcosm of the queue as a whole.  It is the spreadsheet that I now use for my sporadic updates of The Sambo Summary (see below for more info)

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 7a: "Swedish Migration: A Brief History, and What is Happening Now"

As a prelude to my Part 7b: Application Date Statistics, I wanted to take a moment to discuss a very important and hotly contested topic that is affecting all of us applicants: Immigration.

A lot of very disturbing things have been occurring in Sweden recently.  The country is experiencing an unprecedented, record-breaking immigration crisis (and all the social disasters that come with it), and now is as good a time as ever to discuss the history of Sweden's migration to get the "bigger picture" of what is going on. These things should be understood for their full gravity in terms of implications to the country, as well as how it will all affect us.  But before we can understand current events, we must reflect on the past.

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 6c: A Response from Migrationsverket

In my blog post about the discontinuation of priority status, I had mentioned that I was going through some difficulties recently and, in a bit of a venting session, Johan said (threatened?) that he was going to file a priority request for us. He of course did not submit the request (we both knew there was no chance on this green earth we'd get it anyway), but it was also at this time that we learned he couldn't have filed even if he had wanted to.

And then, the 8-14+ month processing time update came.  I think that wrecked all of us a little bit. Johan and I both had our meltdowns.  And in Sweden, Johan's mom could do nothing but watch on and see what it was doing to her kids.  So she did as any mother does when she see's her child hurting; she hand wrote and mailed a letter to the director of Migrationsverket.

We were not made aware of the letter until the day she mailed it, and only Johan got to read a copy of it (he said it was very gentle and only expressed concern over the situation we all are in - especially the conflicting information we all receive). In less than a week, MV responded with a very thorough and direct email. I debated posting it here because it never feels right to publish emails. None of what was written was in any way bad or secret; it just is the principal of the matter, I guess.

However, I feel the letter was a well-written, data-supported and sincere response.  It was written by a sort of spokesperson for MV as I understand, and I appreciate how they did not sugar coat anything; their compassion and understanding of the situation sounded genuine, and the transparency via numbers makes one feel like MV is not trying to ignore that it is dealing with some severe logistical problems, and they are trying to address them -- it just is going to take time (which we all already knew, but there is a lot of damage control that can be done when someone comes out and just "tells it like it is", instead of giving people the run around and telling them to just be patient while it seems like the sky is falling every other week.)

And by sharing it, it may provide others seeking answers, something to digest.

I have anonymized the letter, redacted one sentence, and did my best to translate it (I improvised a bit; sorry!)   While it does not fix or change anything, or give me any increased cause for hope, it does no less give the cold hard truth, and a fair assessment of the current state of affairs.

"The Seas We Swim": An Open Letter to Migrationsverket

It has been a dark month, but I refuse to apologize for the emotions I have been going through, despite a voice inside my chest that reminds me daily how weak I have become.

I've experienced struggle in this life on many occasions, but while this one is different, it is also not different at all; every day is a reminder of how psychological the notion of "hope" is.  Some days, hope seems nothing more than a lie we tell ourselves in order to inspire our legs to keep treading water for one more day.

"Don't sink now," we tell ourselves.  "The rescue boat could be here tomorrow."  

Meanwhile, we continue to swallow water.  The taste of salt never leaves our lips.

(EDITED) The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 6b: The Ending of "Priority Requests"

EDIT (5 Nov 2015):  For those of you just reading this, it has been explained to us by Migrationsverket that the reason for disabling priority requests was so that they can focus all of their man power on clearing out all of the oldest cases with no decision yet. Since all of us have our cases viewed in the order they are received, this will shorten the wait times for all of us. MV has said that since the wait times have gotten so long, EVERYONE has been requesting priority, which has caused a huge administrative mess -- MV was spending too much time investigating if people qualified for priority, which took a lot of time away from them processing applications in the queue.  As a quick reference, they will not consider pregnancy for priority - we have seen several cases of pregnancies being refused priority already.

As a means of keeping this blog as current as possible (given how many of us are waiting in the wings of a situation that seems to grow more dire by the day), I thought this update was important to share because there is not much press about it.

"It's OK to not be OK."

True story:  I have been terribly sick for a couple weeks now, and between that, exhaustion, and stress, I had a total meltdown on the phone with Johan last Friday. He and I both are dealing with some extremely difficult things in our work and family lives, and I just couldn't find the strength to keep myself together in the moment. In a fit of worry over me, Johan quasi-threatened that he was going to email Migrationsverket the following Monday and request priority because of these certain ongoing stresses in my life.  Of course, we both knew that we wouldn't actually get the priority, so I had surmised that he was just venting his frustration for being separated from me.

Except, that he wasn't just venting.

On Wednesday of this week, Johan and I spoke and I could tell he was extremely upset. I came to learn that he was indeed on MV's website researching how to request prioritization, when he happened upon the fresh new announcement that priority was no longer an available option.

A Quick Post About Swedish Language Resources (and a shameless plug of some recent travel pics!)

I thought I would write a quick post to link up useful websites and share other information I've used to help advance my Swedish language skills.  This will be an evolving post; I'll add more as I come by it.

I first started learning Swedish in 2005 when I had my first relationship with a Swede.  He taught me little phrases here and there, and eventually I bought the Teach Yourself books & CDs package (see #4 on the list below).  Teach Yourself was MUCH cheaper than Rosetta Stone, and seemed just as comprehensive (but a casual disclaimer that I have never tried Rosetta Stone).

When I broke up with the first Swede and wanted to continue learning, I started using LiveMocha.com which was really good for basic learning (see #5 on the list below).  But then I began to want a real penpal to have natural conversation with.  I plugged a name into Facebook, pulled up a list, sent a message to someone who showed up on the list, and 5.5 years later we are engaged!*

*These results are not common...but this is, of course, an entirely true story! ;D

In any event, over the years (especially the last 2) I have really focused on my language skills, and these are some useful websites and tips about learning Swedish that I have used in obtaining fluency.  Please feel free to comment if you have other suggestions!

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 6a: The Monthly Update of Processing Times On Migrationsverket

EDIT (25 October 2015):  Please note that any screen shots or references to wait times are as of the date this post was written (6 October 2015).  Wait times have since been updated several times.  In order to have the most recent time frames in mind, please reference Migrationsverket's website HERE for the most recent processing times.

Not much to update really on our case.  We learned our case is being handled in the Umeå office, for whatever that's worth - no discernible news online whether that's a good or bad thing.  The silence can be maddening at times, but at other times it becomes easy to melt into day-to-day life.

Johan has been here with me for the past week and a half.  We've done a few days in LA, a 7-day road trip through central California to Monterey and back, and now we are going to head to San Diego.  I just need him to wake up ;)

But while we were in San Luis Obispo I had logged onto a thread on The Local where a poster had indicated that Migrationsverket had updated the permit processing wait times ("Handläggningstider") on their website.  It struck me as odd because, previously, MV only updated these wait times every 3-4 months.  And just one month ago, they had updated the wait times with a 1-month increase in processing time (a screen shot of that can be seen at the bottom of my Sambo Visa Part 2 blog post).

At the time of the update one month ago, many of us felt it was promising news that the wait times had only increased by 1 month given the refugee circus that is ongoing.

So, to hear that wait times had been updated only one month later, was disconcerting.  I hopped over to the Handläggningstider site of Migrationsverket to see what all the fuss was about: