Citizenship Application 2020

[petbek-125]

Hi everyone.

I truly hope a lot of you have gotten their desired piece of paper this year after I started this topic at the beginning of the year.

To conclude my story and this topic here:

I started my application this year and filled in on enter Finland web-page all required information and added the needed documents and I made a reservation at Migri to show my passport and language test results.

Then Covid-19 happened and due to the extreme high risk of my wife because of her cancer, I cancelled the appointment at Migri and put my application on hold (did not pay yet).

Then last September my wife died, not of the covid-19 but of the cancer we have been fighting for 3,5 years, this changed all.

I cancelled and deleted my application and newly made appointment at Migri again, now because accepting / acquiring the Finnish citizenship would mean I would need to give up my own country's citizenship, because I am no longer married (widower) (my own countries laws).

So I will remain a foreigner in this hostile environment forever or at least until all my kids are grown up and can manage their own life.

Leaves me to wish you all who are still waiting for a decision, the best of luck.
Although I do ask myself, why anyone would want to live here without being tied to this foreigner hating country (PS went up again in the polls) by marriage or family anyway.
If I had the choice, I would be gone: 10 years of teasing by Kekkonen era educated Finns as neighbours, sidelined from the working force by the prevalent "suhteet principle" in job economics regardless of your skills, being used as a slave by the system of free employment (työharjoitelu / työkokeilu) without the prospect of ever gaining full employment (illegal), the utter rudeness of the majority of the people around you, the tasteless food and the sheer evilness of family when it concerns inheritances... and last but not least, the f%#¤% language. No this would not be my choice to stay here...
However the wet (instead of dry and freezing) weather becomes more and more like feeling at my home country

P.S. and yes after 10 years, I do no longer feel Finland is my "home" country.... exactly why I did not want to give up my own original citizenship.

For all of you: stay safe and all the best...have safe holidays and a better 2021 for everyone

I am sorry for your loss! I feel also sorry for your bad experience of Finland.
However, i must say that migrating comes with a lot of problems always. In each first world country there are barriers and obstacles to disable the migrant or at least slow him down. This is without any exception.

If we give examples in Switzerland it would take 10 years to get citizenship and for certain international jobs NOT even after ten years a migrant would get citizenship. In Norway it takes seven years...., etc.
Another example there are in majority of countries more legal obstacles to employment than in Finland. In USA a foreign student wouldnt be allowed to work while in Finland its possible (tbh it can be done but its very restricted and problematic). Many countries wouldnt wait on an international student a year after graduation to get a job.
Another thin is language, there isnt a country that wouldnt demand from you to know its language to gain better access to employment and citizenship. I mean in Germany it would be german language while in France it would be french, but still a language will need to be learnt. Ofcourse one may think that English speaking country is the solution, but if its easy language its easy for many others also, which leads to more competition, skyrocketing housing prices,...etc.
Another example is the social welfare benefits that are available generously to all here in Finland, but thats not always the case elsewhere. In australia access to social security benefits is generally restricted to people who are Australian permanent residents or citizens residing permanently in Australia.
If a wealthy developed country is kinda "close minded" like Finland, it means less competition and more benefits to the ones who make it (social benefits, very low housing prices as compared to NY sydney london, free university education....etc)

The list on the hussle of a migrant goes on and on. Simply we do not live in a highly globalized world order yet, so if one shall not like, better stay home. That is sad but true.
If one migrate, one shall armed with persistence and a positive mind set, for success is possible in any developed first world country despite the variable difficulties.

[petbek-125]

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[callmybbc]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

[petbek-125]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

I like your attitude if we cant affect their speed at least we can stay positive.
Wow 14 months thats looooong.
May i ask you do you come from one of these countries that migri listed of being slowed down on purpose for verification of identity?

[callmybbc]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

I like your attitude if we cant affect their speed at least we can stay positive.
Wow 14 months thats looooong.
May i ask you do you come from one of these countries that migri listed of being slowed down on purpose for verification of identity?

Yes, I come from one of the listed countries that might got delayed due to verification of identity. If I may ask you @petbek, do you think identity verification is the main issue. When Migri make excuse about Identity reliability of some countries even expose their lies more.

I have seen two applicants from the same country who applied at a different time with about two month interval, the later applicant had received positive decision, while the former applicant is still waiting. So there is no iota of truth or valid point making identity verification excuses.

How about a student who are required every year to submit study certificate, their nation passport for identity verification, etc. so my point here is:
As a student, how do they verify my identity all this time that I have been living here and renewing my residence permit with my nation passport.

Migri also claimed they now work remotely, and don't have access to the paper documents needed to do their job because those documents are in their office. @petbek what would you say about this also, does it sound logical to you?



By the way, how long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision?

[rebvar]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

[annie333]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

Hey! thanks for the post. I've been waiting for 10 months since I proved my identity and I'm still in stage 1. Kamu says my queue number is 1245 but this number sometimes increases, once I was 1208 and the next day I was 1269 All my friends that applied got it in a much shorter time (1,4 and 6 months) and it's so disheartening to check every day and see I'm still in stage one. Like they haven't even opened my application to see it. It's like it got lost in between the others and they will never see it.

I wish you good luck! I wished they would really process things in chronological order, but we all know that's not the case.

[annie333]

Hi everyone.

I truly hope a lot of you have gotten their desired piece of paper this year after I started this topic at the beginning of the year.

To conclude my story and this topic here:

I started my application this year and filled in on enter Finland web-page all required information and added the needed documents and I made a reservation at Migri to show my passport and language test results.

Then Covid-19 happened and due to the extreme high risk of my wife because of her cancer, I cancelled the appointment at Migri and put my application on hold (did not pay yet).

Then last September my wife died, not of the covid-19 but of the cancer we have been fighting for 3,5 years, this changed all.

I cancelled and deleted my application and newly made appointment at Migri again, now because accepting / acquiring the Finnish citizenship would mean I would need to give up my own country's citizenship, because I am no longer married (widower) (my own countries laws).

So I will remain a foreigner in this hostile environment forever or at least until all my kids are grown up and can manage their own life.

Leaves me to wish you all who are still waiting for a decision, the best of luck.
Although I do ask myself, why anyone would want to live here without being tied to this foreigner hating country (PS went up again in the polls) by marriage or family anyway.
If I had the choice, I would be gone: 10 years of teasing by Kekkonen era educated Finns as neighbours, sidelined from the working force by the prevalent "suhteet principle" in job economics regardless of your skills, being used as a slave by the system of free employment (työharjoitelu / työkokeilu) without the prospect of ever gaining full employment (illegal), the utter rudeness of the majority of the people around you, the tasteless food and the sheer evilness of family when it concerns inheritances... and last but not least, the f%#¤% language. No this would not be my choice to stay here...
However the wet (instead of dry and freezing) weather becomes more and more like feeling at my home country

P.S. and yes after 10 years, I do no longer feel Finland is my "home" country.... exactly why I did not want to give up my own original citizenship.

For all of you: stay safe and all the best...have safe holidays and a better 2021 for everyone

Hey, I am so sorry for your loss. thank you for the post

I do understand how you feel regarding feeling integrated in Finland... I think they are not very sociable beings and it makes it hard to feel like you're part of the society. The best thing we can do is trying our best to learn the language and maybe go and participate in social activities to really force social contact. I myself don't speak any Finnish but I did learn Swedish (which is way easier), it's not the most useful thing in Finland but at least I can participate in the Swedish speaking school and I have new hobbies.. painting, pottery, cooking... in that sense one can do anything. I get to meet new people sometimes (other times nobody speaks to each other) and clear my head for an hour or two.

I wish you good luck and I hope it gets better for you!

[Alexithymia_again]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

I am very close to 14 months waiting time now I proved my Identity at Migri on 11th OCT 2019. Also someone wrote about Kamu... i was at 250 but after the recent updates on migri pages it went to 425...Also i belong to one of the countries in the Migri list. The last interaction i had over the email with migri, they were "hopeful" that my application would go into processing in Dec, which still does not seems to be the the case as i am still in waiting for processing stage

[petbek-125]

-

[petbek-125]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

I like your attitude if we cant affect their speed at least we can stay positive.
Wow 14 months thats looooong.
May i ask you do you come from one of these countries that migri listed of being slowed down on purpose for verification of identity?

Yes, I come from one of the listed countries that might got delayed due to verification of identity. If I may ask you @petbek, do you think identity verification is the main issue. When Migri make excuse about Identity reliability of some countries even expose their lies more.

I have seen two applicants from the same country who applied at a different time with about two month interval, the later applicant had received positive decision, while the former applicant is still waiting. So there is no iota of truth or valid point making identity verification excuses.

How about a student who are required every year to submit study certificate, their nation passport for identity verification, etc. so my point here is:
As a student, how do they verify my identity all this time that I have been living here and renewing my residence permit with my nation passport.

Migri also claimed they now work remotely, and don't have access to the paper documents needed to do their job because those documents are in their office. @petbek what would you say about this also, does it sound logical to you?



By the way, how long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision?

I personally work as social worker (sosiaalialan ohjaaja) and i do sent tens of applications to migri every month and help people fill appeal against negative decisions from kela, migri, te-toimisto,....etc
I also have legal background and some of my study colleagues ended up working for migri. I am just saying that all to give you an idea that i might know a thing or two about what I am going to say.

First of all, the first thing to ever be checked in ones citizenship application is identity before even looking at other things. you ask but why? you have proven it already several times. Well, not really! The legal threshold for proof in citizenship application is higher than that in student residence permit. For a student you need to "prove your identity", while for citizenship you need to TRUSTFULLY prove your identity. People think this is just a word, but lawyer knows that this "trustfully" word in law is where the decision maker has to make sure there is no "reasonable doubt". This is the second highest threshold in law after the "proving beyond any doubt".

Second, people speak here about verifying with home country, this makes me laugh. Usually proving identity is through identity proof (passi)+ siru system matching. Siru system is basically all the info you ever told Finland before (or even other EU countries). They match this with the info in your application to look for any differences. Additionally some passports are electronically readable, these ones r best . The rectangular shape in Finnish passports at the bottom with circle in the middle thats the electronically readable-sign.

For those from countries with no electronic readability and where passports dont even have watermarks and easy to falsify, the task of proving beyond reasonable doubt here becomes tricky. So what do they do? they send the photocopy to group of experts, that give statement that your document appears to be authentic. Its additional step. Cooperation between countries isnt that common (unless if we r talking about EU countries, in which case there is common data systems in place, orrrr some international terrorism or intelligence stuff). It is not like every morning Finland is sending to some arabian embassy asking "hey is mohammed ahmed really your citizen, and how about Ali?" .

After the identity proof the application gets greened for processing and then the decision maker actually check if you fill the criteria. They check your credit record, criminal record, public registery record,...etc. the ones making decision r different from the ones checking! You get into stage 2 when your application is "sent for approval" or "request for additional info" is sent to you. The reason is that if your application turns to stage two and stays there for months you will get alarmed and keep calling. If somebody stuck on second stage for long, THERE IS A REASON! It went for approval and something unclear or suspicious caused them to wait a bit and check again.

That being said, Is it fair? well, whats fair? why do we need to learn finnish and migrate and apply for citizenship, while someone else born here? And a Fin might ask , why isnt he born a son of biilionaire. Life isnt fair get over it :/.

In 2018 and early 2019 the longest application processing was like 10 months or so with the regular being 4-7 months. What happened? well they decreased their working capacity thinking the refugee crisis is over and there is no need for these amount of workers and stations around Finland, that happened in early 2019, then corona happened causing thousands of aliens passport applications among other problems. Same !"#¤% happened to me when i applied in 2017 during crisis and ended up waiting 4 months for my permit A while my friends got it in two weeks in 2018.

[gingerbreadass]

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

Hope you get your decision soon. I got mine in around two months. Hope this will be the case for everyone from now on.

For me, the affecting factor was my wife, who applied 6 months ago and I applied just before she received her decision. Being linked, her decision started the processing of my application as well and after being in step 2 for around 1 month, they surprised me by making the decision.

Hey! Congrats on such a fast decision! I’m just wondering, did you check your queue number in the kamu chat? If you did, what was your number?

[rebvar]

I checked the queue number the day before receiving the decision and it was 3600+. It was 3800+ before the update they had a week or so ago.

I think the queue number is irrelevant and it is just something we like to check to see the number is going down. Also the queue number does not seem to be specific to one application. For example, if you add 1 or decrease 1 from your application code, it is likely that you'll receive the same queue number.

Let's keep the conversation going...

Most of us here have possibly applied for Finnish citizenship and also future potential applicants are here trying to gather some information that would help them tailored a good application when their time comes. This year has indeed tested our patience with series of events in our personal lives from coronavirus to loosing someone close to you, to loosing jobs, relegating to unemployment benefits, to depression to applying for the Finnish citizenship and many more I cannot think of.

All these events had happened this year alone while MIgri keeps testing our level of patience. So this makes me wanted to ask you guys this question " How long have you been patiently waiting for your Finnish citizenship decision? "

Because, OMG! My application is now officially fourteen months and stage one LOL.

Who knows maybe Migri might surprise me before Christmas or new year

Hope you get your decision soon. I got mine in around two months. Hope this will be the case for everyone from now on.

For me, the affecting factor was my wife, who applied 6 months ago and I applied just before she received her decision. Being linked, her decision started the processing of my application as well and after being in step 2 for around 1 month, they surprised me by making the decision.

Hey! Congrats on such a fast decision! I’m just wondering, did you check your queue number in the kamu chat? If you did, what was your number?

[finblack]

I wanted to travel before Corona came on board.. it has been over 13 months since I proved my identity. I am not really worried about how long it takes. We don't have to fight over anything on here. We ll all get the decisions no matter how long it takes.. I am really sorry for the fellow who lost his wife. Finland is not easy but it not so bad in every aspects. It's a safe country! It's just that, being a citizen might create opportunities for some of us. The delay puts us in an imbalance situation. The language alone has dealt with us. Lol. Learning it wasn't that easy. Personally it took alot from me but I am still surviving . I just hope the process doesn't exceed 16 months.

[F_S]

Do you know anyone without ever depending on social benefits whose application has taken more than 6 months? What I am trying to figure out is if people who have always ONLY paid taxes and never relied on benefits could be ones whose citizenship applications are given the highest priority.