A few hundred illegal migrants a day – we were used to such numbers until Tuesday of this week, when the decision of the Minister of the Interior Agnė Bilotaitė came into force, allowing migrants to be directed back to Belarus and not allowed into Lithuania.
56 new employees
Now these numbers are ten times smaller, however, the Migration Department has not felt a respite yet and will not feel it for some time, according to its director Evelina Gudzinskaitė.
“The internal crisis in the department has already passed – we have reoriented, established new work procedures and procedures. Last week we made selections for additional posts, we finished them, I am very happy that for the first time. It’s such an impressive thing.
Now new employees are coming, this week 9, even more next week, we are starting to introduce them to the procedures. In total, we need to hire 56 new employees.
For us, that great shock is already in the past, we are laying the details and gaining another momentum, ”E. Gudzinskaitė said about the current situation in the Migration Department, whose specialists also examine the asylum applications of illegal migrants.
The internal crisis in the department has already passed – we have reoriented, established new work procedures and procedures.
According to her, it is now understood that this is “another reality”, with its own conditions and requirements to which it has had to adapt.
“Black work is starting now,” she assured.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Evelina Gudzinskaitė
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There are no positive answers
There are currently more than a thousand asylum applications on the table, according to the director.
“So far, all the asylum applications we have examined have been unsatisfied from this wave,” E. Gudzinskaitė said.
The asylum application should be processed by the department within ten working days, but as the director says, this is not yet possible: “We process some applications from filing in the department within four weeks. Some take longer – registration stops, the applicant may be isolated due to COVID-19, or have escaped and been returned.
From this wave, so far, all the asylum applications we have examined have been unsatisfied.
It also takes six weeks for some, but here in some cases the process has taken some time. “
Asked why the applications are not satisfied, E. Gudzinskaitė did not hide – people themselves are not willing to apply for asylum.
“They are simply formally applying for asylum, some pointing out for economic reasons. Others still come up with some reason to be persecuted by relatives, neighbors. But in reality, they don’t even plan to seek asylum.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Everyday life of migrants at Rūdninkai landfill
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Of course, there may be those in that stream who will need to be granted asylum. There may be serious cases, but so far we have not seen any of the decisions we have made, ”said the director of the department.
Lies and disappears
She also stressed that migrants are very reluctant to cooperate with department staff – they are not telling the truth: “We believe in what we are told, we accept that story all the time. But then when we start to be more interested, it turns out that they are telling us the truth, they are not willing to cooperate. “
There are those who disappear, then return them, we examine again. We have about 200 such discontinued requests from those who have arrived now.
The department terminates the processing of some applications altogether – if the applicants themselves disappear.
“There are those who disappear, then return them, we investigate again. We have about 200 such terminated requests from those who have arrived now, ”E. Gudzinskaitė confirmed.
Usually, these migrants then appear, as the director of the department says, “where they will disappear”: “They are registered in our systems, as well as in the European system. In any case, if they travel to Germany or any other country, sooner or later they will find them and return them to us. So they will come back to us. “
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Everyday life of migrants at Rūdninkai landfill
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Migrants who receive negative answers make decisions. Complaints first come back to the Migration Department. According to its head, 11 decisions were appealed last week, this time already 19.
According to the director of the department, the requests themselves are such that it is not difficult to understand that migrants do not want that asylum in Lithuania.
However, this does not mean that no one has received political asylum in Lithuania this year. According to the head of the Migration Department, 73 such applications have been satisfied since the beginning of the year, but all these applicants have legally entered Lithuania, applied for and had grounds to obtain asylum. Let’s say you came from Belarus.
Hope to be interested in getting your money back
Asked whether there were already cases when migrants who entered Lithuania illegally were interested in receiving money and returning to their home country, E. Gudzinskaitė said that so far the procedure is only being prepared, coordinated and these procedures have not been implemented by border guards or migration officials.
“But there is the International Organization for Migration, which is also running its own project on return support, so they have a few people who are already serious about it and are now undergoing technical procedures to get return documents and buy tickets.
Julius Kalinskas / 15min photo / Migration Department
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Such units already exist. Therefore, it can be assumed that when we provide more such opportunities, more such people should appear, ”E. Gudzinskaitė is convinced.
In addition, the weather is changing, the so-called Lithuanian summer that has now begun has already caused dissatisfaction among migrants at the Rūdninkai landfill, when their tents got wet. Soon, as E. Gudzinskaitė says, “Lithuanian autumn, Lithuanian winter” will come, then thinking and self-respecting people will think again about what they are doing here.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Everyday life of migrants at Rūdninkai landfill
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