Swedish national Anders Backman and Bolivian citizen Irene Castillo met in 2009 in Norway. The young people worked together, fell in love and after a while got married. As Irene gave birth to their first child, the couple moved to Bolivia. But after living there for a while and becoming parents for the second time, Irene and Anders decided to move to Sweden.
In November last year, Irene sent application for a residence permit and was told to come to an interview in February or March. But after a while her husband called the Migration Service and learned they had to wait for about a year for the interview.
Irene and Anders are not the first to face problems of that kind. According to official statistics, about 53,000 people have been waiting months for their applications to be processed, including those adopting children from other countries and those who want to bring their relatives to Sweden.
However, some 26,000 of them are the so called "migrants by love", who are awaiting permission to move to the country to be with their partners.
The average waiting time for them is now 378 days compared to 153 days in 2013. Sometimes the waiting period can even last for up to two years.
According to the press center of the Swedish Migration Service, the problem is related to a high number of asylum seekers entering the country. Employees, who had previously held interviews with couples, are spending more time on refugees who are considered a matter of high priority.
European countries, including Sweden, have been trying to cope with a large-scale refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty. The crisis overwhelmed European governments and raised concerns about their ability to cope with the growing refugee influx.
