Anton Glushkov, President of the National Builders' Association of Russia (NOSTROY), has proposed to grant migration amnesty to migrant builders who were deported from the Russia Federation for violation of the migration legislation.
TASS reports that Glushkov told reporters 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,” NOSTROY top manager noted.
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 regime of stay in the Russian Federation.
According to some sources, by early April 2021 there were 5.5 million foreigners in Russia — 42 per cent fewer than a year ago. Construction and agriculture were particularly badly affected. The shortage of migrant workers in construction alone was reportedly estimated at to be 1.5 million to 2 million people.
The flow of migrants from European post-Soviet republics such as the Baltic states, Moldova and Ukraine has reportedly dropped dramatically in recent years, leaving Russia heavily reliant on Central Asia.
Citing Anton Glushkov, RIA Novosti reported on June 17, 2022 that the number of labor migrants working in Russia’s construction sector has decreased to 500,000 people, which is only a quarter of figures of late 2020.
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 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.
