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Previously Latvian border guards who detained a group of such trespassers then sent them back to Russia, however, current cooperation is not so good anymore. Kozlovskis said that it is possible that Russia is no longer interested in cooperating. "The issue now concerns fixing the borders," the minister added.

Maira Roze, deputy head of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, told the deputies that as soon as an individual verbally requests asylum, the asylum procedure begins automatically.

"Mucenieki" currently has 55 immigrants from Ukraine, Syria, and Afghanistan. "The center can accommodate 100 persons, but if we used folding beds, both buildings could accommodate 200 asylum seekers – but no more than that," said Roze, adding that should an additional number of immigrants require accommodation, other solutions could be found using financial aid, including the European Union's funds. There has been only one occasion when 100 persons were simultaneously accommodated at the center, she said.

As reported, during an emergency meeting on July 6, the government agreed that Latvia would accommodate 250 asylum seekers during the next two years.

Although the European Union's justice and home affairs ministers decided at a meeting in Brussels last Tuesday that EU member states would have to take in a total of 54,760 refugees, an agreement on another 7,744 asylum seekers is to be reached by the end of the year, Latvia's position has not changed – the country is prepared to accept 250 refugees but not more, as the interior minister's advisor Daiga Holma previously told LETA.