The Lithuanian Border Service Told about How Migrants Are Returned to Belarus

At least 180 people have already been returned.

Since Tuesday, Lithuanian border guards have begun returning illegal migrants to Belarus who were detained at the border with our country. At least 180 people have already been returned. In this situation, many questions arise. For example, will all detained migrants be sent to Belarus? And if a migrant requests political asylum, will he still be asked back? Zerkalo.io asked the State Border Guard Service under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania how the mechanism for the return of migrants works in practice.

- We received a tool that allows us not to let a person into Lithuania, - explains the representative of the State Border Guard Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania, Rokas Pukinskas. - If employees of the State Border Guard Service meet an illegal migrant at the border with Belarus, he will simply not be allowed to cross it illegally. They will be told: "Please return to Belarus and get to Lithuania legally, through the checkpoint." At the same time, no one deprives them of the right to submit a request for temporary territorial asylum. But this should be done when they enter Lithuania legally, through checkpoints. You can also apply for asylum through the Lithuanian embassy. Such a mechanism exists.

To the clarifying question of whether all the migrants who cross the border and end up on the territory of Lithuania will be sent back to Belarus, the Lithuanian border service found it difficult to answer unequivocally. “This decision (of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania on the return of migrants. - Ed. Note) is valid for half a day, so we can't say it yet,” said a representative of the border service.

According to him, so far the situation looks like this: those illegal migrants whom the Lithuanian border guards find near the border with Belarus, are going to be sent back. If migrants are detained away from the border, for example, near some settlement, then they will be sent to a special outpost and then distributed to refugee camps, as was the case before the current decision of the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“Our employees are trained in tactical skills, and they will apply them. But there is no border at which 100% of violators are detained. The Lithuanian border is no exception,” the border service said.

Migrants who are sent to camps are tested for coronavirus, among other things. Those illegal immigrants who will be deployed at or near the border and returned to Belarus are not going to be tested.

- A person on the territory of Belarus comes to Lithuania. And if he is instructed to return to Belarus, then why should we test him for coronavirus. If a person enters Lithuania, he is tested for coronavirus, - explains a representative of the Lithuanian border guards.

In this situation, the question arises of how they will determine, roughly speaking, the distance from the border at which they will send migrants back to Belarus or refugee camps.

“Each case is considered individually,” the Lithuanian Border Guard Service reports.