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Evelina Gudzinskaitė, head of the department, says that currently it takes three weeks to process an asylum application, but the time frame will increase, with more than 100 migrants arriving in Lithuania in recent days.
“The trial itself will not take any longer, but they will just wait their turn. Applications will not be processed,” E. Gudzinskaitė told BNS on Monday.
He stated that before the crisis, eight specialists from the Migration Department examined asylum applications in Lithuania. Subsequently, their number doubled with internal resources.
In addition, the Department of Migration has announced two selections of asylum professionals and will soon announce another 12 competitions.
E. Gudzinskaitė said that these specialists will be employed on fixed-term contracts until the end of 2021.
“If possible, I appeal a lot to the public, to those who want to help; the work is very meaningful, interesting and responsible at the moment,” said the head of the department.
He stated that he was awaiting decisions from the Interior Ministry on even more additional positions to process applications, as well as requesting more funds for the institution in terms of translation services, overtime pay and the continued provision of free state services. guaranteed legal assistance.
Use gaps
So far, the Migration Department has rejected the asylum applications of 89 illegal immigrants who arrived in Lithuania this year. Asylum applications were not approved.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Evelina Gudzinskaitė
According to E. Gudzinskaitė, applications are rejected together with the help of intelligence agents without proving that the asylum seeker in his country of origin is actually in danger.
Rejected applications can be appealed to the courts, and the process itself can take six to eight months before the application is submitted before the appellate court’s decision, the director of the Department of Migration said.
According to her, the process can be further delayed by the fact that if a migrant’s asylum application is rejected, he or she can present a new one, which is allowed both after and without waiting for court decisions.
According to E. Gudzinskaitė, taking advantage of this opportunity, an unlimited number of applications can be submitted per person and, while they are being processed, it is not possible to initiate the procedure of returning a migrant to the country of origin.
This is a loophole in the European directive.
“This is a legal loophole in the European directive. Clearly, it establishes that if the confirmatory application of a migrant is unfounded, the decision is simply taken not to examine it. But that decision must still be motivated and can also be appealed in court” said E. Gudzinskaitė.
“Such games take place, there are cases where people spin on such carousels several times. It is a very time-consuming and technically labor-intensive thing,” he added.
Another 59 asylum applications were suspended this year because the migrants who submitted them again could not be contacted.
E. Gudzinskaitė speculates that these people simply fled Lithuania.
More than 1,200 illegal immigrants have already arrived in Lithuania this year, several times more than last year. Many of them are from Middle Eastern countries.
Lithuanian officials say the increase in illegal immigration is a hybrid attack on the Belarusian regime, which is taking revenge on Lithuania.
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