Deportation and expulsion from Belarus: the difference, appeal deadlines and first steps

Deportation and expulsion are two different procedures

Deportation is an administrative penalty: administrative removal of a foreign national from Belarus. It is imposed in a case about an administrative offence, most often for breaking the rules of stay. Typical situations are staying without a valid visa or passport, overstaying the permitted period, staying after being notified of an entry ban, and breaking the rules of transit. For these offences the law provides either a fine or deportation, and the choice depends on the circumstances. Such cases are usually considered by the internal affairs or border authorities.

Working without the required special permit or without an employment contract is punished with a fine for the worker, and the employer is fined separately. If any of these violations is repeated within a year after a penalty, deportation is also possible.

Expulsion is not a penalty for an offence. It is a decision of the internal affairs or state security authorities taken in the interests of national security, public order, morality, public health, or the rights and freedoms of others. Expulsion is also used after release from an arrest facility or a correctional institution when deportation is not possible. It may take the form of voluntary departure within the period set in the decision, or forced removal.

Deadlines to appeal

An appeal against deportation filed on time suspends the deportation while the appeal is being considered. Expulsion is suspended for the time a complaint is considered by the higher authority or the court. A missed deadline may be restored only for a valid reason, which has to be proved, so it is safer not to rely on it.

What to do immediately

1. Get a copy of the decision and note the date it was announced or handed to you. The deadline runs from that date.
2. Ask for an interpreter. If you do not speak Belarusian or Russian well enough, you have the right to give explanations in your own language and to use an interpreter free of charge. The decision must be handed to you in translation.
3. Contact an advocate. You have the right to a defence lawyer from the start of the administrative process, and in case of detention, from the moment of actual detention. You may speak with your lawyer in private.
4. Do not sign what you do not understand. You can write in the record that you do not understand the text and need an interpreter.
5. Collect documents: passport, migration card, registration, residence permit, employment contract, lease, marriage certificate and children's birth certificates. Family and work ties in Belarus are often central to the appeal.
6. Inform your consulate if you need its help, for example with a travel document.

Consequences: entry ban and cancelled permits

Once a deportation or expulsion decision has been carried out, the foreigner is included in the list of persons whose entry into Belarus is prohibited or undesirable, and a mark is placed in the passport. After deportation, entry may be banned for a period from six months to five years; after expulsion, from six months to ten years. Deportation or expulsion also leads to cancellation of a temporary or permanent residence permit.

The costs of removal are borne by the foreigner or by the person or organisation that invited them. A foreigner may ask the body that imposed deportation for permission to leave voluntarily at their own expense; this is refused if there are grounds to believe the person will evade departure.

What can be argued on appeal

• procedural violations: no interpreter, rights not explained, no access to a lawyer, the decision not handed over;
• errors in the facts, for example about the dates of entry, registration or the period of stay;
• proportionality: where the law allows a fine or deportation, family in Belarus, length of lawful residence, work and the nature of the breach matter for the choice of penalty;
• circumstances in which removal is not allowed at all: a real threat of persecution, torture or the death penalty in the country of return, subject to the exceptions set by law.

An application for refugee status, additional protection or asylum also suspends removal while it is considered. I prepare complaints in Russian, explain them to you in English and represent you before the authorities and courts anywhere in Belarus.