Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration Vol. 7 No. 2 residence and seeing very restricted access to social welfare and assistance (see Statens Offentliga Utredningar, 2017). This uncertain status, which UNHCR warns against, and the consequences of this, can be understood by referring to the literature on those who fall into the deportation gap in Sweden, unable to stay, but with the authorities not being able to enforce the deportation order (DeBono et al, 2015). The number of those in this deportation gap could increase dramatically if the statelessness of refugees is not identified and the cessation provisions of the 1951 Convention not followed. Summary A significant number of gaps that can result in some stateless refugees remaining indefinitely stateless in Sweden have been identified. These gaps have been widened with the adoption of the temporary asylum law. The discourse of the SMA surrounding the temporary asylum law is that it aims to restrict access to citizenship for newly arrived refugees. Legally, there remains a lack of clarity on the actual impacts of this in terms of access to citizenship. One particular area that requires further research is the issue of what constitutes a person permanently legally residing, and if a refugee who holds a temporary residence permit can naturalise after four years if they meet the hemvist principle. What is clear is that the impact of the temporary asylum law, which introduces the possibility of cessation of refugee status, when combined with the lack of statelessness determination procedure, means that Sweden will not be able to ensure that they are not contravening their obligations under the 1951 Convention when they assess the extension of protection for stateless refugees. This is not the first time Sweden has introduced temporary asylum laws which saw the granting of temporary residence to refugees. Due to the large number of asylum seekers entering Sweden after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Middle East between 1989 and 1993, temporary asylum laws were put in place (Westin, 2006). Though, in June 1993 the government granted 40,000 Bosnian refugees permission to remain permanently in Sweden (Appelqvist, 2000: 89), thus reversing the temporary asylum policies and once again opening the pathway to Swedish citizenship. This U-turn in policy meant that issues related to cessation of refugee status for stateless refugees with temporary residence were avoided. It is too soon to tell what direction Sweden will take, either concretising the temporary asylum law (or aspects of it) or reversing them as they have done in the past. Either way, the debate about whether to do so must include the acknowledgment that Sweden has specific obligations under the 1951 Convention with regard to the cessation of refugee status for stateless refugees. The temporary asylum laws have raised new challenges in this regard and have highlighted that there are substantial gaps in the law and policy on the identification, assessment, and recording of the statelessness of refugees in Sweden. Jason Tucker is a post-doctoral researcher at Malmö Institute of Migration, Diversity, and Welfare (MIM), Malmö University, Sweden. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Bath in 2014. His main area of research is on the nexus between statelessness and forced migration. He is currently undertaking a project on the indefinite statelessness of some stateless refugees in Sweden and Denmark, as well as exploring the framing of stateless refugees under international law. Jason teaches on asylum and refugee law, migration and citizenship and 31