Interior Minister Eimutis Misiūnas unveiled the proposal at a news conference on Monday, saying that other ministers had preliminary approved this option for reorganizing migration functions and that the full Cabinet would discuss this issue in mid-March.
If such a new service were set up, its director would be appointed through competition. Evelina Gudzinskaitė, the current director of the Migration Department, would lose her job, but she would be able to apply to head the new body.
The new service would not be responsible for strategic decisions. Such decisions would be made by a new Migration Commission made up of several ministers and a Group for Migration Affairs within the Interior Ministry.
Interior Minister Misiūnas last year proposed to abolish the Migration Department and transfer its functions to the police, but the idea came under criticism.
The Migration Department has been criticized for not being ready for an inflow of immigrants whose numbers hit a new high for recent years in January.