DUSHANBE, November 9, 2013, Asia-Plus – A single detention center for illegal migrants detained in Moscow and Moscow oblast may be established in Moscow oblast, according to Russian media sources.
Izvestiya
has quoted the head of the Moscow department for regional security, Aleksey Mayorov, as saying that they are discussing several places for the center, including the Yegoryevsk district in Moscow oblast.
Russia’s
Telegrafist
News Agency reports that currently there is only one such a center, which is located in the Severny settlement. This center is intended to hold 400 people.
Moscow authorities have intensified efforts against illegal migrants in recent months. In June, Moscow police detained about 1,400 suspected illegal migrants from Central Asia living in a makeshift village and uncovered a vast underground complex for illegal migrants from Asia with a canteen, cinema, and chicken coop. Hundreds of suspect illegal migrants were arrested in the Russian capital in July. More than 600 immigrants from different countries were forced into the Golyanovo tent camp in early August to await deportation.
Observers say the raids were aimed at currying favor with nationalist-minded Russians ahead of the regional elections that took place on September 8.
Russian migration authorities, however, argued that Russia was using the sweeps to rescue many migrants from squalor and abuse from slave-labor rings run by Central Asians themselves. They have called for more than 80 detention centers to be built nationwide, signaling that the battle against illegal workers is gathering steam.
Itar Tass
reports that Ms. Olga Kirillova, head of the Federal Migration Service”s operation in the Russian capital, told a State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament) parliamentary hearing on October 15 that a new detention centre for immigrants facing deportation is needed in Moscow.
Existing facilities had room for only 400 people, which did not meet law-enforcement authorities” needs, she said. “We wrote a letter to the city’s mayor asking him to create another centre for at least 2,000 people. The city authorities completely support our position but we would like to accelerate the process,” Kirillova said, adding that “The problems of Moscow region are being transferred to the territory of Moscow and almost double the incoming flows of migrants who currently obtain their work permits in Moscow.”
