Seventeen subjects of the Russian Federation want to quit the National Program for Supporting Voluntary Migration of the Compatriots Residing Abroad to the Russian Federation, according to Russian news agency TASS.
In a report released at a session of the Federation Council (Russia’s upper house of parliament, Frist Deputy Interior Minister, Alexander Gorovoy, noted on June 20 that 17 subjects of the Russian Federation want to quit the national resettlement program.
“More than 650,000 compatriots have been accepted from other countries under this program. This year, the program has left much to be desired and seventeen subjects have applied to the government with solicitation to withdraw them from the program,” Gorovoy said.
According to him, the situation has resulted not only from economic problems (regions have nowhere to settle repatriates and have no jobs for them) but probably also from demographic risks.
Recall, representative office of the Russian Interior Ministry in Dushanbe dealing with migration issues says registration of persons for the National Program for Supporting Voluntary Migration of the Compatriots Residing Abroad to the Russian Federation has been suspended as the number of persons for registration for the program for this year has already been formed.
In 2016, nearly 13,700 Tajik nationals applied for participation in the resettlement program and only 1,900 (it is about 7,000 people if members of families are counted) of them were selected for participation in the program.
The National Program for Supporting Voluntary Migration of the Compatriots Residing Abroad to the Russian Federation, also legally known as the State Program for Assisting Compatriots Residing Abroad in Their Voluntary Resettlement in the Russian Federation was approved in 2006. Russian government officials estimated that more than 25 million people were eligible for the repatriation program, “many of them ethnic Russians who found themselves living in former Soviet republics after the Soviet collapse in 1991.”
The Russian government reportedly spends approximately $150 million a year in support of the program. According to the Russian government, most requests for participation in the program come from “compatriots” living in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
The program designates the areas in which new arrivals will live in Russia, “providing them with some benefits on the condition that they stay in these regions for at least two years.”
