Migrants Convicted in Serbia Expelled Only on Paper

Migrants (MINISTRY OF INTERIOR)

According to the Republic Commissariat for Refugees and Migrations, this year only a total of 119,127 migrants were registered in Serbia, including some who had committed crimes or minor offenses and ordered expelled as foreigners from the country, i.e. deported, which could not be implemented in practice in most cases.

Professor Marko Milovic told the June 8 edition of the Politika newspaper that "none of the surrounding countries, but also other European states, are showing any intention of accepting these migrants, and especially those with problems with the law."

"As we know, they too want to lower the number of migrants in their territory. Ergo, there is no point in speaking about returning foreigners to their country of origin. Even much wealthier countries than ours could not shoulder this financial burden. For example, the question is how do you return someone from Afghanistan or Pakistan to these countries given that some of them have nowhere to return or cannot go back to their native country due to conflict, their wartime pasts, revenge," Milovic said.

Milovic said that another big problem in establishing misdemeanor or felony culpability was identifying migrants, especially in cases in which they are irregular migrants, mostly without documents, which makes it hard to establish the residence of a person who has committed a misdemeanor or felony crime.