The Immigration Service told Helsinki resident Fayez Bassalat that he could be deported to Israel because it is no longer issuing residence
Last month, Fayez Bassalat, a 25-year-old Palestinian living in Helsinki, received a deportation notice from the Finnish Immigration Service Migri. The reason, Migri explained, is that it no longer considers his Palestinian passport to be a valid travel document, a decision that threatens to uproot the life he has built for himself in Finland. More than 145 countries around the world recognise the State of Palestine, but Finland is not one of them yet. Bassalat, who grew up in Ramallah in Palestine's West Bank region, came to Finland in 2022 after completing a civil engineering degree in China. Drawn by the promise of Finland as a safe country full of opportunities, he enrolled in a Bachelor’s programme in Electronics Engineering at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. "The first year was challenging. I came as an international student, paid tuition of 11,000 euros per year, and wasn't eligible for student aid or housing support. I worked as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant to get by," Bassalat tells Yle News. Everything unfolded just as he had hoped — an internship at his university led to a part-time contract, which eventually turned into a full-time position as a project engineer and teacher at Metropolia.
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