Asylum – from application to decision

• You must fill in forms with questions about things like your name, citizenship and family, for example.
• You must hand in your passport or other identity documents to show who you are.
• The Swedish Migration Agency will photograph you and take your fingerprints. The fingerprints are used to see whether you have applied for asylum in any other country in Europe, or if you have permission or prohibition to stay in any other country in Europe.
• With the help of an interpreter, you must tell more about who you are, why you have left your home country and how you have travelled to Sweden.
• If you do not have any money, you can apply for financial support. You will receive a bank card and information about daily allowance and special benefits.
• You will get information about the asylum process, the next steps and what you must do. You will also get information about practical issues, such as your right to housing, medical care and schooling for your children.

• Once you have handed in your application, an administrator will go through all your documents, what you have stated and what the searches of your fingerprints have shown.
• Based on the information you have given with the application, the administrator will decide how much of your application must be investigated. All applications are different, and the time needed to investigate therefore differs.
• The administrator prepares your application for the continued investigation. For example, information may be needed from other public authorities.
• If the administrator thinks it necessary, you will get a public counsel appointed for you.
• If you need to add information to your application, the administrator will contact you. This is necessary if you did not hand in any identity documents with your application, for example.

• There are long queues at the Migration Agency, and you may have to wait for a long time for an asylum investigation. The waiting period can also vary from person to person.

• When it is your turn for asylum investigation, you will get an appointment letter by post. The letter states when and where you will see an investigator. It is important that you tell the Migration Agency if you move, so that we have your address when we send the letter to you.

• The investigator will start by telling you what the interview is about and what rights and obligations you have. For example, you are obliged to tell the truth and not to hide anything. The investigator and the interpreter have a professional duty of confidentiality.
• If you need a public counsel, the counsel can be present at the interview.
• With the help of an interpreter, you must say who you are, where you come from, why you are seeking asylum and what you think might happen to you if your have to return to your homeland. You will also get questions about your family, your health and your occupational background.
• You are responsible for telling all your reasons for seeking asylum, and for providing evidence, if you have any, that you want the Migration Agency to consider.
• The investigator keeps minutes of what is said. If you have a public counsel, the counsel shall approve the minutes, which are then filed together with all the documents you have handed in.
• At the end of the interview, you can ask questions about the asylum process or anything else to do with your contacts with the Migration Agency.
  

Inter­view with children

All children have the right to speak and to be listened to. Children who are applying for asylum together with their parents have the right to meet the investigator at the Migration Agency. The asylum reasons for children are considered separately – a child may have other reasons for seeking asylum than the parents. When investigating the asylum reasons for a child, the Migration Agency investigator shall adapt the investigation to suit the child’s age, development and health as far as possible. Children have the right to be accompanied by an adult during the interview. The adult can be a parent, another legal guardian or a public counsel. Unaccompanied children always have the right to be accompanied by a guardian during the interview.

• The decision is based on your account and the documents you have handed in to support what you have told about your identity and your reasons for asylum, and the Migration Agency’s knowledge about the situation in your homeland.
• After the decision, you will have an interview at the Migration Agency where an administrator tells you whether your application has been approved or refused, whether you have been given any particular status and what happens next.
• The decision is written in Swedish, but you will receive oral information about the decision from an interpreter. You will be told about the decision the Migration Agency has made and why we found that decision was the right one in your case.