Police to fast-track rejected asylum seekers deportation

The number of rejected asylum-seekers deported from Finland is expected to rise in the near future, said a press release issued by the police.

At present, the asylum-seeker reception services are catering to around 10,000 individuals who have received a negative decision on their applications for asylum, and some 7,000 of them have appealed against the decisions.

Some of the asylum-seekers who have received a decision to return home will not agree or want to comply voluntarily with the decision. The number of illegal residents in the country is therefore expected to increase, said the release.

It said most of the people deported by the police had received a decision to return home due to their involvements in criminal activities. More than 500 of the approximately 2,600 people deported by the police last year had received a negative decision on their applications for asylum.

According to the police press release, the share of the asylum-seekers having received a negative decision will increase among the deportations to be executed by the police.

“It is the duty of the police to ensure that people who have no legal right to reside in Finland do not stay here. In the most extreme cases, this means we remove people from the country,” said National Police Commissioner Seppo Kolehmainen in a media briefing arranged by the police in Helsinki on Tuesday.

According to Kolehmainen, it is vital for the internal security that asylum seekers’ applications are processed quickly and followed by either rapid integration into Finnish society or a prompt deportation. “This is important for these people personally. Foreign nationals residing in the country illegally, or awaiting removal from the country, are in a vulnerable position.”

In the first instance, individuals with no prerequisites for asylum are always offered a voluntary return. This is the most humane way and the best solution for the returnee, said the national police commissioner.

Kolehmainen also emphasised that all obstacles to returning home are actively taken into account by the police. The process of return, however, can be suspended on justifiable grounds, he added.

“Recently, the police have suspended almost half of the already prepared deportation of the persons who have received a negative asylum decision. Returns are suspended due to renewed applications, for example,” said the police chief.

Of the individual national groups, the police were most often involved in deportations to Estonia totalling at more than 600 cases last year. Most of the people returned to the Finland’s southern neighbour are recurrent offenders who come to Finland on a regular basis, even though they are prohibited to enter Finland due to the crimes they committed here.

One of the tasks of the so-called Tupa function set up in the National Bureau of Investigation in 2016 is to identify among the asylum seekers arriving in Finland those who may pose a threat to the security of the society.

“In practical terms, partly on the basis of soft intelligence data, the Tupa function prepares risk assessments of asylum seekers in Finland. If an individual is considered to pose a risk to the society receives a decision for removal from the country, the police will try to prioritise that person’s return,” said Poutanen.