The ministry points out that migrants registered in Lithuania are issued alien registration certificates that do not give them the right to leave Lithuania or to apply for asylum and residence in another EU country, but the majority of irregular migrants who leave accommodation centers in Lithuania try to reach other EU countries.
If they are detained in another EU country, they are then sent back to Lithuania.
Interior Vice Minister Arnoldas Abramavicius says the fact that foreigners fail to return to migrant centers only confirms Lithuanian institutions and services' prior insights that their main goal is not getting asylum in Lithuania, but traveling to richer Western European countries.
Out of more than 4,000 migrants who have entered Lithuania illegally so far, just 138 people have been granted asylum in Lithuania, and the country is taking steps to deport the rest of them.
Based on data from Lithuania's Joint Situation Center, there are currently fewer than 1,400 irregular migrants living in the five foreigner registration centers in Lithuania, although more than 4,000 of them entered Lithuania from Belarus last year.
Irregular migrants still have the possibility until September 22 to return to their countries of origin voluntarily and receive 1,000 euros. Around 1,040 foreigners, including 670 this year, have returned to their countries of origin voluntarily since the start of the irregular migration crisis. And another 20 foreigners have recently expressed their wish to return to their countries of origin.
Also, Lithuanian border guards have turned more than 11,000 migrants away at the border over the past year as they tried to cross or managed to cross the Lithuanian border from Belarus.
Lithuania accuses Belarus of having orchestrated the flow of irregular migrants and calls it a hybrid attack.
Lithuania has recorded an increase in attempts by irregular migrants to enter Lithuania in recent days. The Interior Ministry says Belarusian border guards are talking migrants to the Lithuanian border and diverting them to places with no physical barrier.
Foreigners are now making attempts to cross the Lithuanian border illegally both in larger groups of 25-35 persons, and also individually. There has been a recent increase in the number of such attempts made by citizens of Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Tajikistan and other countries.
Some 353 km of concertina and a 493 km-long physical barrier have been installed near the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. Epso-G, the Lithuanian company carrying out the project, says contractors still have some three kilometers of razor wire and about 40 km of fence segments to install.