It was supposed to be a relaxing 5-hour high-speed train trip. A whiz over the \u00d8resund Bridge and on to a new life as a scientist in Stockholm, Sweden. Instead, it was three hours on a frigid Swedish border platform, and a police escort to the doors of the first train back to Copenhagen.<\/p>\n
Now Michael Hawgood \u2014 a human biology graduate from the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) \u2014 is in the Danish capital city again, his home for the previous three years, holed up in his girlfriend\u2019s flat. And although he is going to try and depart again soon, he is still uncertain whether the Swedish border will let him through.<\/p>\n
His case is like many British students and PhDs abroad, he reckons: British students and scientists are caught up in a maze of Brexit-related travel bureaucracy. A bureaucracy that has been exacerbated by corona restrictions, and by immigration authorities that say one thing, and then do another.<\/p>\n
This is a Brexit and corona double whammy<\/p>\n
PhD student Michael Hawgood<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Michael Hawgood had everything in order when the Swedish border police came on the train on 13 March, he thought.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI showed them my passport, followed by the other documents listed on the Swedish police\u2019s website like work and housing contracts, proof of residence permit application, and a negative coronavirus test,\u00ab Michael Hawgood recounts.<\/p>\n
Daunting regulations\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\u00bbI sat on the platform while the officer took my documents and went into a temporary office that had been assembled on the platform. Occasionally he would come out and ask me questions, such as ‘how long will you be working in Sweden for?’, ‘have you lived in Sweden before?’ and ‘how long have you lived in Denmark for?’\u00ab he recounts in a post authored by him on the Yorkshire Bylines<\/a> citizen journalism site.<\/p>\n
\nHi @swedeninuk<\/a><\/p>\n
I’m at @SwedeninDK<\/a> as you told me to do, but they are unable to issue me with that document…<\/p>\n
Any chance you can email it to them asap so they can print it out for me?<\/p>\n
Been waiting here for an hour now while trying to reach you on the phone… pic.twitter.com\/oZfRO5Buav<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Mike Hawgood (@Mike_Hawgood) March 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n