Law on regime of foreigners in Moldova to be amended

Chisinau, 11 September /MOLDPRES/ - The law on the regime of foreigners in Moldova will be completed with a string of notions which regulate the stage of preventive accommodation up till the taking into public custody. Also, a new chapter will be introduced in the law, which will establish the procedure of taking foreigners into public custody. The parliamentary commission for national security, defence and public order today approved a draft law to this effect.    

The draft’s author is the Interior Ministry (MAI) and representatives of the General Inspectorate for Migration and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development contributed to the document’s working out. The document adjusts the national legislation to some provisions of the European Union’s legislation.   

Thus, a new chapter will be introduced in the law, which will exhaustively establish the procedure of taking foreigners into public custody. The taking into public custody will be able to be applied, under court ruling, to the foreigners who did not fulfill the decision on return and who were not able to be returned on the terms provided for by the legislation, who crossed or attempted to cross the border illegally, who entered the country on the period of ban instructed earlier, whose identity was not able to be established, who were declared undesirable, against whom the expulsion was instructed. The taking into custody will be instructed for a period of up to 30 days and the period of extension cannot exceed six months in a row.       

The draft law also contains provisions which refer to the procedural guarantees  in case of taking a foreigner into public custody, introduction of the possibility of the participation of people placed into custody in court session through the use of applications of teleconference, as well as the grounds for the release of foreign from public custody.   

According to statistics data, in 2023, 133 foreigners were placed at the centre of temporary placement of foreigners and the average duration of accommodation was of 31 days.