Tämä postaus on saatavilla myös suomeksi.
This Yle article from yesterday is primarily about work-based immigration, but the events described in the first section have stuck with me: the child of a person who had moved to Finland on a work-based residence permit was forced to leave the country and their parents as soon as they turned 18.
This should not happen. Reaching legal adulthood does not mean that a person will immeidately and automatically have a network, a place to live, or anything else anywhere other than where their parents live, and legal adulthood also does not mean that a person no longer relies on their parents' support. In cases like this, Finland — and their parents' residence — is often the new legal adult's only actual home, and they should not be forced to move abroad simply because they are now legally an adult.
The acute problem could be solved with a relatively small change to our immigration and residence permit laws: allow a residence permit granted to a then-underage youth to continue to be extended after said youth turns 18, if their parents still live in Finland. The permit would be extendable for as long as necessary, but the young adult would be expected to switch to a work- or study-based permit once they found a stable job or enrolled in a school or university in Finland.
A somewhat broader — and in my opinion more just — residence permit system reform would, however, allow a residence permit on the basis of family ties to be granted to any nuclear (or somewhat broader than nuclear) family member, regardless of age or the exact nature of the relationship. Nowadays a residence permit may be granted to relatives other than a spouse or minor child only in very limited circumstances, and it isn't possible to e.g. invite your retired parents to live with you in Finland, even if their or your financial situation would otherwise allow it.