ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the debates can be understood as a response to inherent contradictions in citizenship in Sweden context and outlines the two concepts that form the focal point of the debates studied—citizenship and human rights—and the relationship between them. The conceptual debates were spurred by a very particular and delimited problem that political actors took a stance on. These debates constitute one instance among many where the presence of irregular migrants has paved the way for contestation of prevailing notions of citizenship and its relationship to rights. To some degree, these debates are distinct as they take place against the backdrop of a citizenship regime and discourses that are particular for Sweden. The chapter argues that the designation of some rights as human rights—distinguishable from citizenship rights—has been of momentous importance to attempts to establish undocumented adults as right-bearers.
