A Pakistani couple, with a seven year old child, has been allowed to stay in Iceland after the office of Immigration withdrew the order to send them out of the country today. The were scheduled to be escorted by the police to Keflavík International Airport at 18:00 today. There they would be transported all the way to Pakistan. The child, Muhammed Zohair Faisal, talks fluent Icelandic and has never lived in Pakistan. It was reported by Reykjavik Grapevine, that their case had been under review at the Office of Immigration for over 18 months. He has adjusted the life in Iceland like so many other children of refugees that have come to Iceland for a better life. For an example Muhammed is way ahead of his classmates in math. He loves Iceland and when he heard the news that he was going to Pakistan he got excited to see the country that his parents are from. Not knowing what the deportation would mean he asked:

„When are we coming back home to Iceland?“

A large number of Icelanders gathered at Muhammeds local school in Reykjavik, Vesturbæjarskóli, where a few of his and his family friends were going to gather to say both celebrate his birthday and sadly say their goodbyes. Although things changed pretty quickly when hundreds of people showed up along with many people for the Icelandic media. At the gathering people could sign a petition to allow the family to stay in Iceland. In the end, over 19.000 people signed it there and online.

Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir, Minister of Justice in Iceland, has already announced plans to shorten the waiting time for asylum seekers with children. The time would be shortened from eighteen months to sixteen. Families who seek asylum with children and have been in the country for more than sixteen months, would not be expelled. That change in the laws made by the minister meant that the family could stay in Iceland. Sigurbjörnsdóttir said she hopes that this would be only the first step in shortening the procedure of applications for asylum seekers, and that those sixteen months should be the maximum time limit.

„We got a call about this a short time ago. The rules have been changed so that the government will not ban families from countries that have been here for more than sixteen months,“ said Valur Grettisson a friend to the family and the editor of The Reykjavik Grapevine. Muhammed had his seventh year birthday last Saturday so the announcement was probably the best birthday gift of them all.