Lithuania's incoming Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas has not ruled out temporarily reintroducing border controls with Latvia as the number of migrants arriving from Belarus via Latvia continues to increase. Compared with the first half of last year, secondary migration from Latvia has risen fourfold.

Last weekend, Polish authorities found 27 migrants who had attempted to cross the border irregularly in a lorry travelling from Latvia through Lithuania. It was just one of many such cases.​Poland has been carrying out checks on travellers arriving from Lithuania and Germany for the past year. Katelynas said Lithuania could also begin checking people crossing its border with Latvia.​"That would, of course, be the 'nuclear option'. But if we had no other way to manage the flow and stop migrants at the border rather than on our territory, I think we would have to do it. I very much hope it will not come to that," the incoming interior minister said.​According to Katelynas, whether border controls are introduced will depend on migrant flows and on the capacity of border guards.​"We need to discuss this with the border guards and their leadership to understand how much longer they believe they can cope. According to the information I have, not much longer," he said.​Border guards say one of the main problems is that Latvia has been slow to take back migrants who crossed into Lithuania from its territory, despite being obliged to do so.​"We currently have 544 migrants who have not yet been transferred back. We have received positive responses for 132 of them, but no transfer dates have been set. This week, Latvia will accept only 20 from us," said Antanas Montvydas, deputy commander of Lithuania's State Border Guard Service (VSAT).​Checks along the Latvian border have already been stepped up. Nearly 120 migrants have been detained during inspections over the past month. However, officials say they do not have sufficient resources to maintain permanent border controls.​"We do not have dedicated resources at the internal [EU] border. We would have to redeploy officers from other borders and request assistance from partner agencies. We could not manage otherwise," Montvydas said.​Latvia has erected a fence along its borders with Russia and Belarus, but officials say its border security system still has significant gaps. Nearly 8,000 migrants have attempted to enter Latvia from Belarus this year – almost nine times as many as have tried to enter Lithuania.​"In practice, Latvia's border infrastructure is not yet fully developed. The physical barrier is unfinished, and surveillance and detection systems are incomplete. That has an impact on the migration flows," Montvydas said.​Liberal Movement leader Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen opposed introducing border checks, saying Lithuania should first engage in discussions with Latvia.​"The measure he is proposing is an extreme one. We are part of the Schengen area, and introducing border controls would be a serious setback," she said.