Aycan stood in the schoolyard, his smile a shield against today. He’d thought he’d have at least one more year here, with all the kids. He wasn’t ready to go. Now he’d be moving on to another school in another city and tears threatened to move on past his eyelashes and down his cheeks. He had no control over either move.
When the minimum income requirement for third-country nationals residing in Sweden was raised this year, the truth was quickly clear that Aycan would need to look for a higher-paying job if he didn’t want to be deported back ‘home’. Of course this is all the result of policy decisions made at the national level. For the individuals and parties responsible, there is nothing personal about this. No one targeted Aycan. No one considered him at all.
For them, this was an impersonal process of considering Sweden and the foreigners who arrive and influence the country. The nation’s leaders looked at a situation which nearly everyone agrees went too far too fast and enacted laws and made policy decisions to course correct. They chose the path they see most benefitting Sweden. They heard and responded to their constituents. Democracy in action.
Drawing such a sharp distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ feels quite shocking for some of the populace. It flies in the face of the tolerance and live-and-let-live sentiment most Swedes profess to live by. But it shouldn’t really surprise anyone.
Identifying others by whether they belong to ‘us’ or ‘them’ kept humans safe in more brutal, less civilized times. It remains one of our most finely developed skills. We can determine within as little as 200 milliseconds by looking at a photo if another person is part of our group. This in itself is a miracle of nature, but what we do with our judgments matters much more.
One of my neighbors spent most of her adult life as staff in the national after-school program. Give her the chance. She’ll tell you what she thinks of immigrants – especially the ones who stubbornly insist on passing down muslim traditions and values to their children rather than 100% turning over child rearing priorities to the superior, secular Swedish state. She instinctively understands that this high-trust, consensus-seeking society – her home – will fundamentally change if not properly safeguarded. That might sound selfish, but her point is, if all these people coming in can’t assimilate, what chance do they have and more importantly, what chance do their children have, forever excluded from society? She calculates that such exclusion leads to poorer outcomes which matter for everyone. And she’s right.
Aycan didn’t stop at adapting to get by. He integrated. He learned the language. He had his previous teaching credentials accredited. Despite being a qualified teacher, he was hired as an aide for a diabetic child, holding both her insulin monitor and her life in his hands. He taught the kids chess, supported and abided by the teacher’s methods even when he disagreed with them, brought the kids gifts at Eid, became an important contact point for the parents. What more could he do to become part of the in-group in Sweden?
Earn more money, apparently.
According to the Migrant Integration Policy Index, Sweden has some of the best-designed integration policies in the world, but by several measures, some quite dismal real-life outcomes. Unemployment among immigrants remains higher than among Swedes – by 10 percentage points in 2025 – and there’s a gap between tools available to aid integration and an immigrant’s ability to navigate the Swedish system where the tools are located. The hoped-for residential integration targeted back in 1994’s novel housing law never materialized despite years of incremental reforms; the current government has decided to scrap the law completely.
Taking in so many strangers was a generous and life-giving act, if not completely selfless considering that one in three health care workers and one in four in elderly care is an immigrant. However, incremental adjustments to integration policy missed their mark while the nation silently agreed to not talk about it. That led the country to slam their open door policy shut, so we now simultaneously invite ‘international talents’ while actively working to remove non-Swedes who are already here. It’s confusing.
But there’s kind of a lot going on in the world right now. You’ll be forgiven for only paying attention to what feels most urgent for you.
That’s why, when my other neighbor, whose children attend the school where Aycan worked, found out that he was leaving – and more importantly, why he was leaving – her jaw dropped, her eyebrows knit together and she stared, speechless. She’d never needed to pay attention before. But after a disappointing personnel shake up that also shook the parents’ collective faith in the school, she, like the others, had counted on the rock of Aycan as stability for the kids. They saw him as one of their in-group, one of them. He belonged. Would they otherwise deliver their most precious bundles to him day after day?
Studies show that something as simple as branded gear from a preferred sports team can immediately change our assessment of belonging, basically redefining what group the person may be in or out of. If just putting on a team t-shirt can trigger a new calculation, imagine what putting on your child’s affection will do.
Maybe I am just as guilty as my neighbor of not paying enough attention. This is, after all, my first public comment. Writing is the only way I know how to think, how to process deep things. Today it’s my only tool to process the profound irony – absurdity? – of putting a man in the position where the only way to avoid completely disrupting his life through deportation is by completely disrupting his life to meet a salary requirement.
Communities aren’t stitched together; they’re knit. You can’t just slap a patch on knit fabric. If you snag a knit, the whole piece can be ruined quite quickly. A whole school community got caught in this snag. How unruly will the class become with so much upheaval and how much learning will that cost? How many children’s parents will finally lose all trust in the school and move the child to another one, causing a whole new cascade of consequences? How many parents will devote extra energy to making sure their child manages this school year – energy their bosses and colleagues will notice missing? How big will the hole grow?
“I’ve watched them grow up,” Aycan said. “I’ve spent more time with them than their parents. They’ve come to me when they’re hurt and they’ve run and jumped in my arms when they do something for the first time that they thought they couldn’t do. I got those moments with them, not their parents… They’ve gotten so big.”
Aycan stood for the last time in the schoolyard, his smile a shield against today.
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