Asylum investigations are transferred from the Police to the Finnish Immigration Service on 1 march 2016

Once an asylum seeker has arrived in Finland and been registered, he or she will be subject to an asylum investigation to establish his or her identity and travel route. At the moment, both the police and the Border Guard conduct asylum investigations. As of 1 March 2016, asylum investigations will be transferred from the police to the Finnish Immigration Service. The agency will carry out the investigation in connection with the asylum interview.

The Border Guard will continue carrying out asylum investigations for now, but the Finnish Immigration Service will take over the investigations on 1 January 2017 at the latest.

These changes will speed up the processing of applications, since there will be no waiting time between the asylum investigation and the asylum interview. The Finnish Immigration Service currently processes new applications in parallel with the applications that have been submitted before 1 March. This is to ensure that the old queue becomes shorter and to prevent a new queue from forming. At the moment, the number of decisions that the Finnish Immigration Service can make is over twice as large as the number of new applications. The Finnish Immigration Service aims to make 1,000 decisions per week from the end of March.

The transfer of practical knowledge and skills relating to asylum investigations has already started. The Finnish Immigration Service has taken over investigations gradually since November, and the new employees who have previously worked for the police and the Border Guard have brought their knowledge with them to the agency. Information will be exchanged actively also after the changes have taken place.

The police will still receive applications together with the Border Guard

The police and the Border Guard will still receive asylum applications and register asylum seekers. The police are also responsible for the enforcement of decisions on removal from the country and the service of decisions on the applicants. In the future, the police will be able to concentrate better on its core tasks and to prepare for the increasing number of decisions on removal from the country and for the number of tasks relating to removal which will multiply.

As before, the police are responsible for criminal investigations. In some cases, the Border Guard can have responsibility for a criminal investigation.

The Finnish Immigration Service will take over asylum investigations from the Border Guard on 1 January 2017 at the latest, when the transfer of competence is brought into force by an act. Tasks can be transferred from the police even earlier pursuant to section 210 of the Aliens Act.

Further information:

Esko Repo, Director of Asylum Unit, tel. 0295 430 431, e-mail: firstname.lastname@migri.fi