The procedure
According to Petar Evrov, Sector Chief at the Ministry of  Interior Migration Directorate (MIMD) most of the illegal emigrants coming to Bulgaria from Asia and Africa are emigrating because of economic rather than political reasons. However, if an illegal foreigner can prove that his life is threatened  in his native country, according to the Foreigners Act, Bulgaria can send him to a third secure country. The authority in Bulgaria which deals with granting or refusing  political refugee status or any other kind of refugee status and asylum is the State Agency for Refugees  (SAR).

 It is a government agency and acts under the jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers and follows the Refugees and Asylum Act.

According to this Act, every foreigner can apply for refugee status after entering the country. He or she applies to the SAR. The agency starts an investigation and launches a procedure to establish if there are any grounds for granting the foreigner such status.

If, as it is in most of the cases, the foreigner's motion gets denied, he or she has the right to appeal the denial in court. After the court rules on the appeal, if it confirms the previous SAR denial, then the foreigner falls under the jurisdiction of the MIMD and is sent to one of the centres for the temporary accommodation of illegal foreigners in Bulgaria, such as the one in Druzhba and the newly opened centre in Sofia's Busmantsi neighbourhood. 

During the period when the foreigner is waiting for the SAR or the court to rule on his motion for refugee status,  he or she has refugee candidate status and is given a special card - a  document which testifies that he or she is a candidate for refugee status, and this plays the role of a temporary ID. If the court denies the foreigner's motion, this temporary ID is taken away  and they are sent to the  facilities administrated by the MIMD. 

There are exceptions in the law when even a foreigner with such a temporary ID can be sent to the MIMD centres even though they are waiting for the court to rule on their motion. Such cases are when  the foreigner commits a crime, or he or she is declared a threat to national security or public order, under Article 10, Section 1 of the Foreigners Act. "This is the common European practice in such cases. The MIMD cannot say who is a threat to the national security or public order because the MIMD is just an administrative service, not an investigation one and the MIMD only has to apply the compulsory measures imposed on foreigners by other departments of the system of the Interior Ministry. The MIMD just follows the legal procedure," Evrov says.

In cases when foreigners are detained without any ID in Bulgaria, they are immediately sent to the MIMD centres. After their detention, the MIMD immediately notifies the respective embassies in Bulgaria, both by phone and in written form because the MIMD is the only authorised service in Bulgaria which can contact the embassies when an illegal foreigner is detained without ID. According to the Foreigners Act, the embassies have to issue the foreigners ID so that they are able to return to their native countries. "This procedure could last for an indefinite period and that is why the detained  foreigners can spend a long time in the centres, sometimes even more than two years, waiting for their embassies to issue ID," Evrov says. "There is no fixed period  in terms of how long the illegal foreigners can be detained in the centre. Now there is draft project for amending this regulation for which, as far as I know, the period is no more than six months as it is in most of the EU countries. But this is still a draft," he says.

After an embassy is informed of the detention of one of its nationals, the embassy starts its own investigation to find out if there really is such a person by that name. In some cases, this process can continue for more than a year. "Such is the case with the Indian embassy. They officially say that have problems with this procedure. It is entirely up to the embassies how long it takes for a foreigner to get his new ID, and in most of the cases it is just a matter of time for the embassies to issue an ID," Evrov says.

Facilities
At present, the  MIMD is in the process of transferring its activities and illegal foreigners from the the Druzhba centre to the recently opened, but still not functioning, facility in Sofia's Busmantsi neighbourhood. "The new facility in Busmantsi is brand new, there is a staff appointed and the foreigners detained in Druzhba will be soon transferred there, and it will start operating," Evrov says.

Before the opening of the Busmantsi centre, the Druzhba facility had several purposes. It was a place where illegal foreigners were sent and a place for detaining Sofia's beggars and vagrants, which is its primary function. Because there was a lack of a special facility for illegal foreigners, the Druzhba centre was also used for accommodating the foreigners as well.

"Now only illegal foreigners who are awaiting their deportation from Bulgaria would be sent to the Busmantsi centre," Evrov is certain. The capacity of the Busmantsi centre is close to 400 people.

According to the recently adopted Interior Ministry Act, the Druzhba facility will be used only for accommodating beggars and vagrants and it will be under the jurisdiction of Sofia police, while the Busmantsi centre will be under the jurisdiction of MIMD.

As well as illegal foreigners, the Busmantsi centre will be used for  foreigners who have served time in Sofia prison and after their release, according to the Foreigners Act, have no right to stay legally in Bulgaria. They will remain in the centre until their deportation from  Bulgaria.

"Busmantsi is an entirely different picture than the one in Druzhba. There is a special section for female foreigners who would be separated from the males. The guards there are also females. The females detained in Druzhba centre also receive separate rooms," Evrov says. At present, similar facilities to that in Druzhba exist in Plovdiv, Varna and Bourgas and in the near future MIMD plans to build another centre in the village of Luybimets next to border with Turkey. One of the reasons for this new centre is that, according to Evrov, Bulgaria is still considered to be a transit country for the traffic of illegal foreigners trying to reach the EU. "When Bulgaria joins the EU, this might change and some of the illegal foreigners would apply for Bulgarian citizenship, which will give them free access to other EU countries," he says.

Javed Nouri case
Evrov has Nouri's order for expulsion on his desk. "It was issued by the National Security Service (NSS) in 2005. All regulations had been followed. Nouri has been given this order and he has a copy of it and his lawyer has it too. So, according to the law, Nouri has the right to sign  it or not and he apparently did not. He is still in the country because in his case there are certain technical problems, such as the fact that  Bulgaria does not have a direct flight connection with Afghanistan. The bottom line is that after this order, Nouri cannot apply for legal stay in Bulgaria. He can appeal the order before the  Interior Minister and the court, but at the same time he does not have the right to apply for legal stay in the country. "For the grounds of this order you should ask the NSS," says Evrov. Nouri was detained in 2006, but the order was issued in 2005, so in the time between he was illegally staying in Bulgaria.  We have notified the Afghanistan embassy in Bulgaria of Nouri's detention and he is currently waiting for an ID so that he can be returned to Afghanistan. However, although Nouri is currently appealing the order, he can still be sent to Afghanistan. There are many cases when the court overrules such orders as groundless, but the foreigner has already been sent back to his country," Evrov says.