A controversial new law will come into effect next week, which could see people on work-based residence permits deported from Finland if they are unemployed for a certain period of time.
Turku resident Aya Ahmed, founder of an NGO which seeks to bring Finns and foreigners together through shared interests and activities, wrote a post on LinkedIn after she received a letter saying that she faced the prospect of her visa being revoked.
"They ask you for your opinion about having your permit withdrawn. What do you think of that and what ties do you have to Finland," Ahmed tells the show.
"And I have been reflecting on these questions a lot, like what ties do I have here? I'm building a family here. My wife is here, my dog is here, our entire life is here. Hello?"
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Sara Rostam Shirazi of Startup Refugees, an NGO that helps immigrants in Finland with job searches, notes that the time limits will make it even more difficult for people to find work — especially in the current economic climate.
"I don't think that it's a sustainable or humane approach to attract internationals to the country," she says. "My take is that three months, six months is not reasonable to find job opportunities, not even for Finns themselves."
Katri Niskanen, head of the team at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment responsible for preparing the legislation, explains to APN how the new law will work in practice.
"It needs to be highlighted that this is not an automatic cancellation, that automatically after the three months or six months have expired, then the person would somehow cease to be legally in the country," Niskanen clarified. "That's not the case."
We also round up the rest of this week's news from Finland and provide our weekly tip on what to watch on Yle Areena.
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Ronan Browne presented this episode of All Points North and the sound engineer was Tuomas Vauhkonen.
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