An article posted on CABAR.asia’s website notes that the situation of migrants in the Russian society has always been a challenge.
According to the Federal Migration Service, over 10 million migrants reside in Russia legally, whereas three million reside there illegally. Most of them come from Central Asia. Nearly 1 million migrants have a temporary residence permit or permanent residence permit.
According to lawyer Anton Zenchenko, migrants from Central Asia are a as bait for the Russian police officers, the article says. They can stop them for no reason just to check their documents, etc.
Most of the Russian politicians stand for the strict visa regime with Central Asian states because migrants in Moscow, according to the official statistics, commit every seventh homicide and almost half of all rape cases. However, Russia cannot do without migrants because the national economy will go down in this case.
According to lawyer Parkhan Ilkin, the demand of police officers to present documents is not a violation. But the Russian Ministry of Interior Affairs from time to time spreads migrantophobic myths about the allegedly high crime rate among migrants, and in most cases they find original documents invalid.
"The migrants whose rights are violated can send a complaint to the prosecutor's office. Based on Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Public Prosecution Office of the Russian Federation" dated January 17, 1992, every complaint must be investigated and the results of such investigation must be provided. If any violations of the valid law are found, the prosecutor must take measures of prosecutorial response. However, there are lots of such complaints, and usually no one pays attention to them," the lawyer said.
Migrants usually become victims of discrimination in their rights to housing, education, health, labor and social security. For example, it is not rare when citizens of the Central Asian region cannot rent an apartment in Moscow because property owners prefer to take in 'Slavonic' tenants.
Also, there are stories when police officers organize mass illegal migration themselves. In 2019, police officers of Moscow registered over 50 thousand migrant workers as migrants in an 'unlimited' house for bribes that totally amounted to nearly 50 million rubles (equivalent to US$678,500).
Four years ago, a non-profit entity Tong Jahoni, launched a new legal assistance project in Moscow to help migrants. According to Valentina Chupik, the head of Tong Jahoni, foreign migrants can contact their organization at any time and ask them for advice.
The human rights lawyers of this non-profit entity teach migrants to talk to the Russian police and hold trainings from time to time.
“We suggest creating adaptation centers that would check future migrants for criminal record, their knowledge of Russian, of laws and rules of behavior in Russia before they depart to Russia. This will let migrant workers feel themselves more comfortable in our territory and avoid stressful situations," said Vadim Kozhenov, the president of the Migrants Federation of Russia.
To improve migration law, the President of Russia approved the Concept of State Migration Policy until 2025 in October 2018. Now the Russian Ministry of Interior Affairs will bind all migrants who are going to stay in Russia for a long time to receive the universal electronic document that is valid for ten years. It will contain graphic and text information about its holder.
