Some members of the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament) have supported the proposal to grant migration amnesty to part of labor migrants, who were deported for violation of the migration legislation.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta (RG) reported on March 19 that the deputy head of the State Duma Committee for economic Policy, Artyom Kirynov has proposed to grant amnesty to foreign migrant workers who were punished for just violation of the terms of stay or administrative offences.
According to him, this will help solve personnel problems in the field of construction as well as housing and utilities.
“This measure will help attract from several tens of thousands to 200,000 foreign workers in Russia’s labor market,” Kiryanov said, noting that the construction sector has a bigger stake than others in attracting foreign workers.
According to RG, Kiryanov did not rule out that the mechanism could also be extended to labor migrants, who have not yet left the country.
RG says Kiryanov noted that now the initiative is being discussed by the professional community.
This is not the first such proposal since the beginning of the year. Recall, Anton Glushkov, President of the National Builders' Association of Russia (NOSTROY), in late January proposed to grant migration amnesty to migrant builders who were deported from the Russia Federation just for violation of the migration legislation.
He reportedly told reporters in Moscow on January 26 that “it is time to work out the mechanisms of granting the so-called amnesty to foreign migrant workers who were deported from Russia, because are needed, they already have experience of work in Russia, have production skills.”
According to him, the number of migrant workers deported for violation of the migration legislation is large enough. “Only on the example of Tajikistan, there are about 0.5 million people,” NOSTROY president said.
He further added that although violations may be of different nature, the most of them were of administrative nature, for example, nonpayment of fines or violation of the rules of stay in the Russian Federation.
Labor migration to the Russian Federation has become a phenomenon unprecedented in scale and importance to the Tajik economy, on the national as well as household levels, having made invaluable contributions to the country’s development and helping reduce poverty significantly over the last decade.
During his two-day official visit to Russia on June 16-17, 2022, Tajik President Emoali Rahmon attempted to revoke travel bans slapped on hundreds of thousands of aspiring labor migrants.
But a joint declaration released on April 17, 2022 alluded only to creating “favorable living and labor conditions for Tajik citizens in Russia [and Russian citizens in Tajikistan] through the proper implementation of relevant legislation and no mention was made of any amnesty.
It was not for the first time that Tajikistan asked Russia to grant amnesty to Tajik citizens deported from Russia. Thus, Tajik authorities in January 2007 asked the Russian government to amnesty approximately 50,000 deported Tajik citizens. They noted that most of Tajik national who were barred from returning to Russia for five years, were punished just for failing to register within three days of their arrival in Russia.
However, Russia refused to amnesty those deported Tajiks.
Meanwhile, under a 2017 agreement, a travel ban imposed on around 100,000 Tajik nationals, who had been deported from Russia was lifted.
Prior to the 2017 agreement, around 400,000 Tajik nationals were barred from entering the Russian Federation.
Some sources say that by June 2019, that figure was around 240,000.
