Federal Act
on Foreign Nationals and Integration
(Foreign Nationals and Integration Act, FNIA)¹

¹ To fa­cil­it­ate the con­duct of re­turn or ex­pul­sion pro­ceed­ings or crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in which the po­ten­tial pen­alty in­cludes an or­der for ex­pul­sion from Switzer­land un­der Art­icle 66a or 66a^bis SCC¹⁹³ or Art­icle 49a or 49a^bis MCC¹⁹⁴, the com­pet­ent can­ton­al au­thor­ity may de­tain a per­son who does not hold a short stay, res­id­ence or set­tle­ment per­mit for a max­im­um of six months while pre­par­ing to de­cide on that per­son’s res­id­ence status if that per­son:¹⁹⁵

a.¹⁹⁶

re­fuses dur­ing asylum pro­ceed­ings, re­turn or ex­pul­sion pro­ceed­ings or crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in which the po­ten­tial pen­alty in­cludes an or­der for ex­pul­sion from Switzer­land un­der Art­icle 66a or 66a^bis SCC or Art­icle 49a or 49a^bis MCC to dis­close their iden­tity, sub­mits sev­er­al ap­plic­a­tions for asylum us­ing vari­ous iden­tit­ies, or re­peatedly fails to com­ply with a sum­mons without suf­fi­cient reas­on or ig­nores oth­er in­struc­tions is­sued by the au­thor­it­ies in the asylum pro­ced­ure;

b.

leaves an area al­loc­ated to them in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 74 or enters an area from which they are ex­cluded;

c.

enters Swiss ter­rit­ory des­pite a ban on entry and can­not be im­me­di­ately re­moved;

d.

has been made sub­ject to a re­turn de­cision or ex­pul­sion or­der and has sub­mit­ted an ap­plic­a­tion for asylum fol­low­ing the leg­ally bind­ing re­voc­a­tion (Art. 62 and 63) or non-re­new­al of the per­mit be­cause they have vi­ol­ated or rep­res­ent a threat to pub­lic se­cur­ity and or­der or be­cause they rep­res­ent a threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity;

e.

sub­mits an ap­plic­a­tion for asylum after ex­pul­sion (Art. 68);

f.

stays un­law­fully in Switzer­land and sub­mits an ap­plic­a­tion for asylum with the ob­vi­ous in­ten­tion of avoid­ing the im­min­ent en­force­ment of a re­turn de­cision or ex­pul­sion or­der; such an in­ten­tion shall be sus­pec­ted if it were pos­sible and reas­on­able to file the asylum ap­plic­a­tion earli­er and if the ap­plic­a­tion is sub­mit­ted in close chro­no­lo­gic­al re­la­tion to de­ten­tion, crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings, the en­force­ment of a pen­alty or the is­sue of a re­turn de­cision;

g.

ser­i­ously threatens oth­er per­sons or sig­ni­fic­antly en­dangers the life and limb of oth­er per­sons and is there­fore be­ing pro­sec­uted or has been con­victed;

h.

has been con­victed of a felony;

i.¹⁹⁷

is a risk to Switzer­land’s in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity ac­cord­ing to find­ings made by fed­pol or the FIS.

[tab]

^1bis ...¹⁹⁸

² The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall de­cide on the res­id­ence status of the per­son held in de­ten­tion without delay.