Migrant workers entering Russia without a visa will have to buy a 30,000 ruble ($900) promissory note guaranteeing that they can pay for their own deportation. Legislators of the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament, who drafted this bill, put forward this proposal. This sum will be paid back upon migrants’ departure from Russia.
According to the State Duma, last year 35,134 migrants were deported from Russia in 2012 and 28,585 migrants in 2011, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily wrote. “Often these people have no funds to cover expenditures on administrative expulsion or deportation,” one of the bill’s authors, Sergei Zhigarev, said. “In most cases it seems impossible to find a receiving party, therefore these procedures are carried out through budget funds. At the same time the average cost of deportation of a Central Asian citizen ranges between 30,000 roubles to 40,000 roubles. These expenditures create a groundless burden for the country’s budget and annul the effect of migrant labour for the country’s economy.”
“For an Uzbek citizen, who arrives in Moscow in search of a job, the sum of 30,000 roubles is the same what 3 million roubles mean for us. It is too severe,” the head of the Moscow migration department at the Federal Migration Service, Olga Kirillova, told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
However, the Moscow migration department fully supports a proposal to introduce entry by foreign travel passports. “Processing of this document envisages serious checkups. If a person violates laws, he/she will simply not get a foreign travel passport. This means that fewer criminals will come to Russia. We perceive rather cautiously the introduction of visa rules with neighbouring countries. I think the Foreign Ministry should resolve this issue. This is a complicated issue implying possible aggravation of relations with neighbours that are our friends.”
Already this summer officers of the Russian Federal Migration Service will meet migrant workers at railway stations as they get off the train, Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote. Acting Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said how these checkpoints will work. “These check points should ensure regular control over observation of the migration legislation in airports and railway stations. They should be equipped with technologies and databases, while control officers should have the right to take prompt decisions to detect and prevent violations.” If a migrant worker enters Russia illegally, he/she will be detained and sent to a detention centre, where he/she will be kept until deportation. Legal migrants will be explained how to get all necessary documents.