Riga vice mayor gives illegal immigrants a month to leave capital and Latvia

RIGA - Riga Vice Mayor Edvards Ratnieks of the National Alliance said at a news conference on Tuesday that he is urging illegal immigrants to leave Riga and Latvia in a month.

Migration was one of the issues highlighted by the National Alliance in its campaign in the runup to this year's municipal elections.

Ratnieks said he felt that residents of Riga had started feeling less safe on the streets of the Latvian capital amid rising illegal migration. While previously illegal immigrants came mainly from Central Asia, this year the number of illegal immigrants from African countries has been on the rise.

The Riga vice mayor cited the experience of other European countries, such as Sweden and France, which have shown that migrants can cause the criminogenic situation to deteriorate very rapidly. "We need to be proactive for the sake of future security," Ratnieks said.

The politician promised that in a month - at the end of September - the Riga Municipal Police will launch extensive raids to detect illegal migrants.

Municipal Police Chief Juris Lukass indicated that when a municipal police officer detects a person without a legal residence permit in Latvia, the person is handed over to the State Police or Border Guard.

Lukass informed that of the 22 illegal migrants detained in Riga this year, 15 were from African countries. These people, who had arrived in Latvia from Belarus and Russia, had been taken to Riga and left there. These people look lost and disoriented and are looking for some kind of contact with individuals like themselves.

Since the beginning of this year, the Riga Municipal Police have detained and handed over 22 persons to the State Border Guard, an average of less than three persons per month. By comparison, 23 persons were detained last year and 24 in 2023. Most of the persons detained in Riga without residence permits in Riga this year were from Sudan and Ethiopia.