The Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board (UNE) is now resuming the processing of cases where Ukrainians may receive a final decision with a duty to return to their home country.
Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, UNE suspended the duty to return for people with a final decision to return to Ukraine. This applied to both former asylum seekers and to persons with a duty to return after rejection of applications in accordance with other parts of the regulations.
In addition to suspending the duty to return in cases that had already been processed, UNE stopped the processing of Ukraine cases that had not been decided at the time.
UNE is now resuming the case processing again. This applies both to the Ukrainians who had their duty to return suspended and their case put on hold in UNE, and to recently received appeals against UDI’s decisions.
Rejections from UDI can be appealed to UNE
On 27 September 2024, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security decided to change the immigration regulations. These changes mean that fewer Ukrainians will be granted collective protection in Norway. Persons who following this, receive a rejection by UDI will be able to appeal this rejection to UNE.
UNE is an independent appeals board that will be able to consider all aspects of UDI's rejections, both in asylum cases and in other cases under the Immigration Act. For persons for whom the rules for collective protection no longer apply, it will be central whether they should still be allowed to stay in Norway for individual reasons.
UNE has for the time being, 13 Ukrainian cases concerning protection. Of these, 11 are more recent appeals concerning rejections of collective protection, and the other two are cases that were put on hold at the outbreak of war. Forecasts from UDI indicate that UNE may receive just under a hundred new protection cases for processing before the new year.