DN Debate. "On Wednesday, the Swedish people can be divided into an A and a B team"

Two Swedish citizens commit the same serious crime and are sentenced to the same sentence. Nevertheless, the consequences can be completely different: those who are also citizens of another country can lose their Swedish citizenship.

Since 25 years ago, dual citizenship has been allowed in Sweden. When the decision was taken, they were fully aware that many immigrants already had dual citizenship. Since then, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their children, born in Sweden, have received Swedish citizenship. Although there are no statistics on how many immigrants and children of immigrants have dual citizenship, more than one million Swedish citizens could be affected by a change in the law that would make it possible to strip them of their citizenship.

On 11 November 2026, the Riksdag will make the second decision on the constitutional amendment that opens up this system. What then changes is the nature of citizenship itself. Denationalization and revocation of citizenship has become a growing field of research (Prener, 2021). From having been a safe belonging, it becomes a potentially conditional status, where politically undesirable or allegedly disloyal citizens can be excluded. The security benefits are unclear, while the consequences for equality, political participation and the legitimacy of state power could be significant. The Riksdag should say no to making the belonging of some Swedes less secure than that of others.

The proposal means that revocation should be able to be introduced by ordinary law in the event of incorrect or misleading information or other improper actions during the acquisition, as well as in the event of a conviction for a crime that seriously damages Sweden's vital interests (SOU 2026:21). What is now at stake is constitutional protection itself. The decision concerns what opportunities today's and tomorrow's political majorities should have to deprive people of their membership in society.

Citizenship provides a lasting basis for security, democratic participation and belonging. Previous research highlights that the right to retain one's citizenship should not depend on the state's assessment of who is desirable. The possibility of revoking citizenship creates a hierarchy where dual and acquired citizenship mark a weaker affiliation.

The insecurity can make itself known long before a citizenship is actually revoked. People who have been subjected to recall processes talk about alienation in front of the country, the family, the environment and themselves (Birkvad, 2023). The home remains, but the security of belonging is damaged. This is how a conditional membership can characterize everyday life. The importance of citizenship for socioeconomic and democratic participation appears in several studies on the labor market and electoral participation of immigrants and their children in Sweden (Delmi 2015:6 and 2017:7). Immigrants who have become Swedish citizens have a higher employment rate and vote more often in municipal elections than those who have not, even when several other differences are taken into account. Weakening the security of citizenship can mean taking a risk with something that society should protect.

Against this stands the promise of increased security, the main argument in SOU 2026:21. But a changed legal status does not make a person less dangerous. Previous research points to risks of marginalization, lost contact with authorities and hindered international law enforcement cooperation. In Bolhuis's study (2026; see also Bolhuis & Wijk, 2020), counter-terrorism professionals in the Netherlands describe how recall without the possibility of deportation can lead to reduced support for reintegration and impaired risk management. The measure thus risks counteracting the security work it is said to strengthen.

It is also about what power will remain when today's debate has died down. In the UK, the possibilities for revocation have expanded, and what was an exceptional measure has become an increasingly established part of the state's exercise of power, as highlighted in research (Gibney, 2013; Birdsall, 2025). Once the constitution is opened, the rules within its framework can be changed by ordinary law, without a parliamentary election between two decisions. All parties should assess what power future majorities will have. The issue is given particular sharpness by the fact that a former chairman of the Riksdag's business committee recently argued that the citizenship of a newly elected member of the Riksdag should be revoked. Thus, the tool has already been introduced into the Swedish political debate.

The security arguments must therefore be tested against human rights (Zedner, 2016). The need for such an examination is made even clearer by the fact that even children's citizenship can in some cases be revoked when a parent loses theirs.

Fraud must be investigated and serious crimes prosecuted. The question is why the state also needs to be able to revoke people's membership. Neither SOU 2026:21 nor the research in the field proves that recall increases safety. On the other hand, the research has identified concrete legal and social problems as well as risks for security work. Whoever wants to introduce such an intrusive power must be able to show what it adds. Before the decision on November 11, it is not enough to refer to tougher measures.

If the research is to be taken seriously, there is a lack of support to implement the constitutional amendment. Punish the crimes. But defend an equal citizenship, where crime is punished without dividing the population into those who naturally belong and those whose Swedishness the state can withdraw.

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