Fifty per cent more foreigners were expelled from Bulgaria in 2005 than in 2004, and 20 per cent more were forcefully delivered to Bulgaria’s borders in 2005 than in 2004.

The figures are part of the Interior Ministry’s Migration Directorate statistics for the past year. The numbers will probably continue to rise, the Interior Ministry told The Sofia Echo, because they are part of a tendency that has existed for two years. The latter is also a result of the Migration Directorate’s improved administrative control of foreigners’ stays in Bulgaria and part of Bulgaria’s progress on the path to the European Union, the Interior Ministry said.

Of the 216 foreigners expelled from Bulgaria in 2005, most came from Turkey (61), Serbia-Montenegro (20), Moldova (19), Macedonia (16), Iran (10) and Iraq (10). Of the 993 foreigners who were forcefully taken to the border in 2005, 155 came from Turkey; 143 came from Armenia, 88 from Afghanistan, 75 from Moldova and 38 from Algeria.
Expulsions and forceful takings to the border fall under the so-called forced administrative measures of Bulgaria’s Foreigners Act.

According to the act, foreigners are expelled when their presence in Bulgaria is a serous threat to national security and public order. Foreigners are forcefully taken to the border if they cannot prove that they have entered the country legally, if they do not leave the country by the seventh day after a prolongation of their stay has been refused, or if it was found out that they had entered and dwelt in the country with fake or altered documents. Most foreigners dealing with imposed administrative measures had passed the border illegally and stayed after the allowed term, or had not left the country after they were denied refugee status, the Interior Ministry said.

On March 30, the Interior Ministry opened Bulgaria’s first Special Home for Temporary Accommodation of Foreigners (SHTAF) in the Sofia quarter of Busmantsi. Foreigners who cannot be immediately expelled or forcefully taken to the border are accommodated there. Such would be when foreigners do not have identity documents for travelling beyond the borders or documents needed for being taken to the border; when they do not have money to buy a travel ticket; when they are a threat to the security and public order in the country; or when their health does not allow them to travel.

The SHTAF can accommodate up to 400 illegally dwelling foreigners and is the biggest in the Balkans, Interior Minister Roumen Petkov said. It was built with Government money.

On January 1 2006, new requirements about the address registration of foreigners in Bulgaria entered into force. They require all foreigners to state the aim of their visit and their address in a written form upon entering Bulgaria. Foreigners in transit or exiting Bulgaria within 24 hours are not required to do so. Under the same law, hoteliers and their staff also have to include foreigners in a special register and provide information about them to the service for administrative control of foreigners or to the respective local police station.