Ministry of Internal Affairs (Georgia)

Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) acquired authority to conduct unannounced inspections of foreign nationals' homes and workplaces under the second-reading amendments to the labour migration law that took effect on 1 March 2026. Separately, foreign nationals who participate in protests now face deportation and a three-year entry ban. Both powers apply to the estimated 7,200 remote workers based in Tbilisi, even though the labour migration law's formal scope excludes those employed by foreign companies.

The Georgian MIA is the primary law enforcement and immigration enforcement ministry in Georgia. It oversees the national police, border police and immigration services. The ministry sits within a government that has passed a "foreign agents" law modelled on Russian legislation, suspended EU accession talks, and whose Prime Minister has publicly stated Georgia will be "freed from illegal migrants".

The operative mechanism here is the gap between legal scope and administrative practice. GYLA's Nika Simonishvili has stated that remote workers for foreign employers are outside the law's formal scope. But the MIA's inspection powers do not require a legal finding of labour-law violation to be exercised: an inspection can be initiated, a protest-participation check can be made, and the threat of deportation operates regardless of whether the underlying law formally applies. The chilling effect is the point.