Dublin Regulation: When will an asylum seeker be refused entry and returned to another European state?
It has been reported that the suspect in the Turku attack was registered in Germany before coming to Finland. Public debate has questioned why his asylum application was still being processed in Finland.
Finland, along with other EU States, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, applies the Dublin III Regulation when processing asylum applications. According to this regulation, only one of these countries is responsible for processing an asylum application. When an asylum seeker arrives in Finland and applies for asylum, the Finnish Immigration Service determines which country is deemed responsible for processing the application.
Another Dublin Member State may be responsible for processing the application if, for instance:
- the applicant has family ties, a residence permit or a visa in the Member State in question
- the applicant’s fingerprints have been registered in the Eurodac fingerprint database in connection with an unauthorised crossing of an external border, or when applying for asylum in the country in question.
Using the shared central fingerprint database EURODAC
When determining who is responsible for processing an asylum application, the Finnish Immigration Service checks whether the applicant has any records in the shared European registers. Of these registers, the Eurodac fingerprint database is intended to accelerate the identification of the responsible Member State. Every Member State applying the Dublin Regulation enters fingerprints into this database if a person has applied for asylum or illegally crossed an external border.
Since 15 January 2003, the register has contained the fingerprints of all persons over the age of 14 applying for asylum.
However, during the exceptionally busy period in 2015, not all Member States were able to register asylum seekers immediately.
If there is no information about an asylum seeker in the international registers, Finland does not necessarily have grounds to request another Member State to process an application or to refuse entry of the asylum seeker on the basis of the Dublin Regulation.
For example, the fact that a person has visited or passed through another State is insufficient on its own. Illegal residence in a country must be proven, and must have lasted over five months.
If there are no grounds for refusal of entry on the basis of the Dublin Regulation, Finland is responsible for processing the asylum application.
Persons processing asylum applications do not have access to other countries’ criminal registers
Crimes committed in other Member States are not visible in the Eurodac system, which is intended solely for identifying which State is responsible for processing an asylum matter.
Crimes committed in one of the Member States will not affect which State is responsible for processing an asylum application, and will not lead to the person’s fingerprints being entered in the Eurodac fingerprint database. In such a case, the person will be entered in that country’s national criminal register, to which persons who are processing asylum applications in Finland have no access.
In some circumstances, a person who has committed a crime in another European State may be entered into Europe’s central Schengen Information System due to, for example, a prohibition on entry or a warrant of apprehension. If someone has been using a different identity in another State, this kind of information will not always be discovered during an investigation.
Likewise, if someone were to commit crimes in Finland or be found to be residing in the country illegally, this information would not be visible if he or she were to apply for asylum in another Dublin Member State, and Finland would not automatically be responsible for processing his or her asylum application.
Further information for the media
Mikko Montin, Head of the Dublin Section, tel. +358 295 430 431, email: forename.surname@migri.fi
