Asylum decisions will no longer be made in Vaasa and Rovaniemi – the Finnish Immigration Service’s operations there will continue

The Finnish Immigration Service has decided to close, by the end of the year, the Vaasa and Rovaniemi service points, where asylum decisions have been processed. The service points were established at the beginning of 2016 to clear the backlog of asylum applications. The service points will be closed down, as the backlog of asylum applications will be cleared by the end of the year.

However, the Finnish Immigration Service will continue its operations next year in both Vaasa and Rovaniemi, as all permits for foreign nationals which have been handled by the police will be transferred to the agency at the turn of the year. In the future, asylum decisions will not be processed at these localities.

Number of employees to be decreased after the backlog has been cleared

The Finnish Immigration Service has within a year hired over 500 fixed-term employees to process asylum applications. When the backlog of applications has been cleared, all fixed-term contracts cannot be extended. Next year, the Asylum Unit will have around 250 employees. If there is an increase in the number of asylum seekers, the plan will be reviewed.

New vacancies will open up at the agency’s other units due to an increase in the number of other applications, such as applications based on family ties and citizenship applications. Both internal and external recruitment will be used to fill the vacancies. However, all current employees will not be able to continue to work at the agency.

The number of employees at the Finnish Immigration Service will remain at about 800 next year, as law amendments will bring new tasks and, as a result, employees to the agency.

Finnish Immigration Service to take over the administration of the State’s reception centres

The administration of the State’s reception centres in Oulu and Joutseno will be transferred to the Finnish Immigration Service. The reception centres will continue to operate as usual, but the more than one hundred employees at the reception centres will become public officials at the Reception Unit of the Finnish Immigration Service.

Handling of permits to be transferred from the police to the Finnish Immigration Service

The Finnish Immigration Service will be in charge of the handling of all permits of foreign nationals from the beginning of next year. From 2017, the Finnish Immigration Service will handle, for example, extended permits for foreign nationals, which will bring tens of thousands of applications to the Finnish Immigration Service every year.

The Finnish Immigration Service will also start to accept applications, whereas foreign nationals previously have handed in their applications to the police in Finland. For this purpose, the Finnish Immigration Service will open nine new customer service points located in Helsinki, Lappeenranta, the Turku region, Lahti, Tampere, Vaasa, Kuopio, Oulu and Rovaniemi.

There will be hardly any new vacancies at these localities as employees who have processed permits for foreign nationals at the police will be transferred to the Immigration Unit of the Finnish Immigration Service. A total of more than one hundred jobs will be transferred.

Further information for the media:

Press and Communications Services, tel. +358 295 433 037, media@migri.fi

Press release on the transfer of the handling of permits