MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. A law banning labour migrants to entre Russia for a term of ten years for violating the sojourn procedures enters into force on Saturday.

Under the law, the ten-year entry ban is applicable to foreign citizens and people without citizenship who stayed in Russia for more than 280 days during their previous visit. Foreigners and people without citizenship who stayed in Russia illegally for 180 days will be banned from entering Russia for a term of five years.

Russia’s previous migration laws were much milder with the longest entry ban of three years.

Konstantin Romodanovsky, the chief of Russia’s Federal Migration Service, has recently said that the number of illegal migrants was practically the same as the number of those staying in Russia legally. Thus, he said, as many as 2.7 million labour migrant were staying in Russia legally, while about 2.9 million were illegal migrants.