The Cruel Optimism of Work Permits: Vulnerabilities and Deportability Among Rejected Asylum-Seekers and International Students Pursuing Track Changes in Sweden

This article suggests that recent transformation of the Swedish migration regime has exposed different categories of migrants working in Sweden to deportability, despite the promises that work permits offer. Firstly, I outline the policy context in which deportability works as a cohesive order (Könönen, Citation2018, p. 59). Secondly, I explore how migrants who go through track changes balance prolonging their stay on the basis of work with the risk of deportation. Here, deportability captures how having a work permit both open doors and at the same time produces vulnerabilities attached to being dependent upon individual employers in the current employer-driven system.