When Lamin, originally from Gambia, separated from his wife, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) was immediately in touch to notify him that they intended to cancel his residence permit. At the time Lamin and his Finnish wife were still in the middle of the six-month probation period required in Finland to get a divorce.The couple had already agreed on joint custody.
The couple's child, Yaya, was two years old at the time.
Migri argued that the child's 'best interests' didn't require having his other parent around.
Lamin has twice appealed Migri's decision to an administrative court, and three years on he is still awaiting a second decision from Migri. Lamin said he worries every day that the police will arrive at his door and take him to the airport.
Lamin is also an important father figure for his ex's other child born from a previous relationship.
"I feel terrible for my family. These two children are my everything. I can't do anything until the decision comes down. Sometimes I can't even sleep out of fear of the doorbell ringing in the night," Lamin said.
An investigation by Yle's MOT unit found that a child's right to a relationship with both parents does not always happen in Finland. Breaking Finland's entry rules or endangering general safety can trump the rights of the child, according to Migri. A Finnish child's parent can be deported for violating Finnish immigration rules.
This happens even though international agreements call for a child's best interests to take precedence over decisions made by other authorities.
MOT found that the immigration authority also keeps tabs on families in Finland. Migri can, for instance, find out if a marriage is headed for divorce. The agency has also tracked down a married foreigner on dating app Tinder.
"The threshold is not being abandoned"
MOT reviewed Migri's decisions over the past five years in cases where it did not grant residence permits to the parents of Finnish children. In total, there were around 500 applications for residency based on guardianship. Migri's position was negative in nearly a third of these cases.
Migri's position in these cases demonstrates that it can separate children from their parents if it finds that the foreign parent has either arrived or lived in the country illegally. Criminal suspicion alone can also be enough to seal a deportation order, MOT found.
Many of Migri's decisions argue that the deportation of one parent neither endangers the best interests of the child nor does it amount to child abandonment. Migri's decision making in these cases suggests that parenting can also be conducted over video calls.
Migri also claims that a toddler is not old enough to miss a parent living elsewhere.
When weighing a child's best interests, Migri sets the bar at avoiding child abandonment, according to Immigration Service unit director Olli Koskipirtti.
"We have to be convinced that here in Finland there is at least one person who can care for the child. In today's world there are many ways of keeping in touch electronically," he said. "If it's a very young child, he or she can adjust to a situation where the other parent isn't necessarily there."
So a child can adjust to not having a father?
"A father or mother."
"A child can't choose their father"
MOT interviewed four families fighting for the right of the foreign parent to live with their child in Finland. To protect these families' privacy, we are only using first names in this story. MOT has consulted numerous official documents to verify the details of the featured cases.
Lamin's former spouse, Susanna, said she opposed his deportation. The couple had agreed to share custody immediately after separating.
Lamin works and is able to support his family. He does not need social benefits to get by. Yaya spends at least one night at his father's place every week and Lamin sees his son regularly.
The situation confunds Susanna.
"This feels really unfair. The child has not been able to choose his father. Why do the children of two Finnish parents have different rights than those who have a foreign background parent? What right does Migri have to estrange a child from their father."
"The girl gets nothing from video calls"
Migri has already deported Heidi's Ghanaian husband, Zidahu. Heidi lives in Finland with the couple's two-year-old daughter.
In Finland, Zidahu has received two pecuniary penalties. The first fine was for forgery and using a false identity when he arrived in Finland as a young person.
The other penalty was 100 income-linked day fines for assault. A district court found that while Zidahu had attempted to help his neighbour who was being assaulted by a car thief, he had used unnecessary force.
Migri deemed Zidahu to be a threat to public safety in Finland. This means that staying in Finland would only be possible if the child's interests were seriously endangered. This was not the case, according to Migri, because the girl still had a mother in Finland.
Zidahu was banned from entering the Schengen area for three years. He now stays in touch with his daughter over a poor video connection—a situation Heidi considers unfair.
"Our daughter is only starting to speak, so she doesn't really get anything from those calls. What she needs is a physical presence, someone to play and cuddle with her," Heidi said.
Zidahu said it's beyond sad that he can't be with his daughter.
"I have a strong connection with my daughter and I love her so much. I didn't bring her into this world for video chats."
"Children suffer parents' mistakes"
Couples who marry shortly after meeting as well as those divorcing soon after tying the knot may arouse sham marriage suspicions at Migri.
Ville Punto, an attorney assisting clients in residence permit matters, said Migri has narrowed its interpretations of what constitutes a child's best interest.
"Even if the applicant has a child, Migri won't necessarily grant a residence permit because of something that happened a long time ago. The child ends up suffering because of their parents' mistakes for things that happened before they were even born," he said.
This is exactly what is happening to Ali, an Iraqi, who has lived in Finland for eight years. He and his wife, Laura, had Celina around a year ago.
Migri ordered his deportation for previously giving the authorities false information about his identity. He also lived in the country illegally after being denied asylum.
He has now appealed his residency case to the administrative court on the basis of guardianship.
Ali said he does not want to leave his wife and child.
"It makes me sad that I haven't done anything wrong but it's always a negative decision coming down," Ali explained.
Laura said she wonders why she doesn't have a right to family life with her spouse and child in her own country.
"It's my understanding that a lot of consideration is given to the rights of the child—for the child to have the right to live with both parents. Isn't our family as good as others?"
"We don't actively monitor Tinder"
Ville Punto said he believes Migri has increasingly intruded in people's personal lives since 2017, when it took over residence permit matters from the police.
The immigration authority can, for example, crosscheck the population register to see if a couple is still married or living together.
MOT has learned of a case where Migri tracked down a married man on Tinder. The agency proceeded to write a letter to the man asking what his wife thought about him being on the dating app and how this affected their marriage.
"This crosses the privacy line. You can talk about it being Kafkaesque," Punto said.
Olli Koskipirtti from Migri told MOT that inquiring about Tinder is exceptional and that he did not consider such action to be necessary.
"We don't actively follow Tinder. We don't have a Tinder department," he said.
Koskipirtti, however, told MOT that Migri does have a unit tasked with monitoring the lives of those who have been granted residency. This supervision includes checks on marriage status.
"It's a form of follow up that's carried out through random checks."
"A child has a right to both parents"
The entire Finnish immigration system is built to control entry, according to Sanna Valtonen from the Support for Asylum Seekers association.
"We've had a spirit of restriction for years," she told MOT.
When it comes to cases relating to the best interests of the child, Valtonen said that Migri not only gets sidetracked, but also sidelines human rights agreements. This is illustrated by the agency's viewpoint that a child doesn't need to be in close proximity to both parents.
"How can a child's best interests not require having both parents? The Convention on the Rights of the Child obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities," she explained.
She also said Migri's reasoning is often conflicting.
"If we're talking about deporting a child and parents, they say it's in the child's interest to stay with the parents. But when it's an issue of deporting one parent, then they say that the child's best interest does not require the presence of both parents."
Migri takes a narrow interpretation of the Aliens Act, according to Ville Punto. Instead of homing in on securing children's rights, the focus is on determining whether these rights would be severely jeopardised if one parent is sent away.
"They've gone where the bar is the lowest," he said. "It's about politics in a way. I'm not implying that politicians are telling Migri what to do, but in many instances their decisions reflect ongoing discussions about immigration."
Migri changing its policy
Koskipirtti from Migri admitted that in relation to the rights of the child, criminal violations have weighed too heavily in family-based residence permit decisions.
He said that Migri plans to soften its policy going forward and work towards a more 'customer friendly approach'.
"We've been thinking about how much a permit applicant can be punished for earlier offences. If their family life is genuine and real, then we want that to count more now."
Backlogs are one factor fuelling this new approach. The agency cannot scrutinise applicants as carefully as before
"We have to streamline our process and make decisions more quickly."
