DUSHANBE, May 26, 2014, Asia-Plus — Fifty nationals of Tajikistan are waiting for deportation at the detention center for illegal migrants that is located in the Moscow oblast, according to the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of the Population (LMER)’s office in Moscow.
The LMEP delegation reportedly visited the Russian Federation from May 18 to May 25. The main purpose was reportedly for the delegation to get acquainted living and working conditions of Tajik migrant workers in Russia and meet with Russian officials to discuss issues related to regulation of the labor migration processes.
“On May 25, the Tajik delegation visited the detention center for illegal migrants, which is located in the Yegoryevsk district, Moscow oblast,” Ibrohim Ahmadov, a spokesman for the LMER’s office in Moscow, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, fifty nationals of Tajikistan are currently waiting for deportation at the Yegoryevsk detention center for illegal migrants.
The lives of migrant workers in Russia have never been easy. But the year 2013 brought even greater challenges, with rising nationalism and a shaky economy making migrants the target of increased hostility and violence. The last summer witnessed massive nationwide raids in which thousands of Central Asians, Caucasians, and other labor migrants were detained and sometimes deported. Migrants say their status leaves them vulnerable to extortion and abuse. Many Russians, meanwhile, have called for Moscow to impose a visa regime for visiting workers from the post-Soviet region.
We will recall that Moscow authorities intensified efforts against illegal migrants last summer. In June 2013, 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 2013. More than 600 immigrants from different countries were forced into the Golyanovo tent camp in early August last year 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, 2013.
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.
