Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration Vol. 7 No. 2 Section 12 of the Act on Swedish Citizenship foresees the potential barriers some people may face in proving their identity when applying for naturalisation, allowing for exceptions if the person has domiciled in Sweden for eight years and the information about their identity is credible (Regeringskansliet, 2006). However, any period of time the applicant has spent in Sweden with an incorrect identity is not counted towards the period of residency (Bernitz, 2013). Given that stateless refugees cannot appeal decisions about their identity, this can lead to a situation of prolonged statelessness if the SMA have incorrectly assessed the person’s statelessness. The dangers of this lack of clarity on determining statelessness was highlighted in an Administrative Court Judgment which ruled, in a case where the Swedish Tax Agency and the SMA had not agreed upon whether a child born in Sweden to an unmarried Somali woman was stateless or not, the child could not acquire Swedish citizenship by notification as the statelessness of the child had not been established due to the authorities (both of whom have no law or policy upon which to accurately make such an assessment) not reaching a consensus (Förvaltningsrätten, 2012). The Temporary Asylum Law and Naturalisation Temporary restrictions on refugees being granted permanent residence permits in Sweden came into force in 2016. The law not only applied to new applicants but also those still waiting for a decision on their asylum claim. Previously anyone granted a residence permit as a refugee, a person in need of subsidiary protection or a person otherwise in need of protection, before the 20th of July 2016, received a permanent residence permit (Migrationsverket, 2016d). From this date, however, with some few exceptions, 14 those in need of protection as refugees only receive temporary residence permits valid for three years. With regard to the extension of these new temporary residence permits, the SMA stated that ‘If the person still has grounds for protection when their residence permit expires, they can be granted an extension of their residence permit in Sweden. If the person can support him/herself, they can be granted a permanent residence permit’ (ibid). The SMA have been explicit in what this means for these new arrivals ability to naturalise as Swedish citizens in the future. “This [temporary measure] means that the large number of asylum seekers who came to Sweden last autumn [2015] can only become Swedish citizens in a few years, providing they have permanent residence permits” (Migrationsverket, 2016c). In the past, the requirement to hold a permanent residence permit in order to naturalise has been successfully challenged (Migrationsöverdomstolen, 2008a). In one case it was decided that the applicant, who had met the residency requirement by renewing his temporary residence repeatedly, had intended to permanently stay in Sweden from the date of application for asylum, even though the applicant only received temporary residence. This was because, at the time, an application for asylum was an application for permanent residence. Thus, it was successfully argued that it was always the applicant’s intention to permanently reside in Sweden, and he thus met the hemvist principle. However, refugees who arrived after the temporary law was introduced are not applying for permanent residence. It remains unclear what impact the temporary asylum law 14 Unaccompanied minors and families with children under the age of 18 who were in need of protection were still granted permanent residence permits if they submitted an application for asylum before the 24th of November 2015. 29