DUSHANBE, August 6, 2012, Asia-Plus — A roundtable took place in Moscow on August 3 to discuss issues related to toughening punishment for violation of Russia’s migration legislation.
According to the Migration Service under the Government of Tajikistan, the meeting participants included Mr. Anatoly Kuznetsov, the deputy director of Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FSM), Ms. Alexandra Zemskova, the chairperson of the FMS migration control directorate, Mr. Asror Odinayev, the head of the Tajik Migration Service’s representative office in Moscow, a swell as representatives of ethnic diasporas, experts, and lawyers.
Kuznetsov reported on innovations aiming to toughen punishment for violation of the Russian migration legislation.
“Russia’s legislation now stipulates that illegal border crossing and organizations of illegal migration is punishable by up to five years in jail, and committing these crimes under aggravating circumstances is punishable by up to seven years in jail,” Kuznetsov was quoted as saying by the Tajik Migration Service press center.
Besides, foreign citizens who were deported from Russia for repeated violation of the Russia migration service are now barred from returning to Russia for ten years (earlier they had been barred from returning for five years).
Ms. Zemskova, for her part, noted that a number of amendments would be also made to the country’s administrative code. These amendments will toughen disciplinary actions employers violating foreign migrant recruitment requirements, she said.
During the discussions, representatives of the ethnic diasporas expressed their attitude toward amendments offered to the Russian migration legislation. In reports released at the meeting, they also revealed problems facing labor migrants from their countries in the Russian Federation.
Asror Odinayev, in particular, pointed to the necessity of taking measures regarding legal employment of migrants and stay of foreign workers in Russia. “The organized recruitment of labor migrants provides for pre-migration training of labor migrants, including vocational training, studying the Russian language and basics of the Russian migration legislation,” Odinayev noted.
In this connection, he offered to speed up drafting of a government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and Russia on the organized recruitment of labor migrants, the source said.
