According to Kivenjuuri of the Border Guard Agency, approximately one thousand state border crime investigations have been opened for asylum seekers who arrived across the eastern border.
For asylum seekers State border crime investigations usually end quite briefly at the Border Guard. But there are some exceptions.
A state border offense is committed if, for example, you cross the Finnish border without proper travel documents or enter the country through a non-official border crossing point. However, according to the Penal Code, there is no conviction for a state border crime if a foreigner applies for asylum based on refugee status or is the target of human trafficking.
In some situations, even a person who initially registered as an asylum seeker can still be punished for the said crime. The punishment can be a fine or imprisonment for a maximum of one year.
“In individual cases, sentencing is possible. There are quite a few cases where, for example, a person first applies for asylum and then may cancel their application after a while. For example, in such a situation, the investigation of a state border crime can be continued further,” says the head of the unit Tomi Kivenjuuri From the staff of the Border Guard.
From August Since then, more than 1,300 asylum seekers have come to Finland through the eastern border. According to the authorities, the reason behind the large influx of asylum seekers is Russia's actions, i.e. the fact that people from the eastern neighbor are specifically directed to Finland. Because of this, Finland's eastern border is also currently completely closed to prevent the arrival of new arrivals.
According to Kivenjuure, approximately one thousand state border crime investigations have been opened for asylum seekers who arrived across the eastern border.
“If in some situation the question has been, for example, a family or a group, we have not necessarily opened separate degrees for them, but they have been able to be dealt with in one case,” he says.
Kivenjuuri characterizes that conducting state border criminal investigations on asylum seekers is related to technical aspects. In some cases, it is a very short procedure. In other cases, it may be necessary to conduct, for example, several interrogations.
“The investigation investigates, for example, which documents a person has come to Finland with and where and by which route he came. Interrogations are carried out to the necessary extent.”
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“In individual cases, sentencing is possible.”
Through the investigation, the Border Guard also gets more general situational information about the forms of crime and their changes. Simple basic degrees can open the way to more extensive degrees. Through individual state border crime investigations, border authorities can also get on the trail of larger criminal groups or organized crime.
“There may be a lot of information that we wouldn't necessarily get otherwise, if we didn't do interrogations about even simple crimes,” says Kivenjuuri.
In practice the lion's share of state border criminal investigations related to asylum seekers end with the decision of the director of investigations. Sometimes the matter can go to the prosecutor, as for example in a situation where someone has withdrawn their application.
Kivenjuuri emphasizes that the focus of the Border Guard's attention is crime related to organizing illegal immigration. There is very little information about individual unauthorized state border crossings and the asylum applications that may be related to them. Usually, the notification is related to some extraordinary issue or phenomenon, such as recently, for example, crossing the border through the terrain on the eastern border.
For example, Amnesty Finland criticized the messaging service on Tuesday X, that the current public narrative creates, at worst, a completely false image of the rights of people seeking asylum and the principle of impunity. It stated, among other things, that the Border Guard often fails to mention that asylum seekers are not convicted of a state border crime.
According to Kivenjuure, for example, in Yle's story, in which he was interviewed last week, at least this issue related to the Criminal Code was clearly brought up. Kivenjuuri can't take a position on that, as, for example, the bulletins of different border guards have told about the matter in the last few years.
“It could be a good thing to mention in the bulletins, if it has not been brought up in the bulletins,” Kivenjuuri says in his own opinion on whether the bulletins from the Border Guard concerning asylum seekers and state border crimes should always include a mention of what the Criminal Code says about sentencing a person who has applied for international protection.
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