Russia's never-ending fight against migrants

A new crackdown by the Parliamentary Commission for Migration Policy. They are targeting bodies that issue compulsory certificates of knowledge of the Russian language and history and the Internet sites that help obtain illegal documents. Unauthorised stay on Russian territory also becomes an aggravating circumstance for any violation of a rule.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Moscow Duma is seeking increasingly decisive action in the fight against illegal immigration, which for several months now has been developing against a backdrop of growing xenophobia among the population, an effect of the terrorist attacks and consequences of the war in Ukraine itself, which also involves Central Asian countries in ambiguous ways.

The latest measures concern the prohibition of mediation structures from holding compulsory examinations in the Russian language and the history of the Russian Federation for those entering the country for the first time.

In addition, all internet resources that can in any way help to illegally prepare entry documents have been blocked, and fines of many millions of roubles have been imposed for falsifying them ‘for the purpose of organising illegal immigration flows’.

The parliamentary commission for migration policy issues is chaired by deputy speaker Irina Jarovaja of the Putinist United Russia party, known for having produced the amendments to the laws on freedom of religious confession that outlawed Jehovah's Witnesses, the Scientology sect, Pentecostals and other religious groups.

From her comes the latest proposal of five new measures against migrants, supported by a very large group of deputies from all parties represented in the Duma, including President Vjačeslav Volodin.

The first two formulas already approved provide for a strengthening of liability for organising illegal immigration, and assign to illegal stay on Russian territory a status that aggravates any other violation, even a parking ban.

Jarovaja's three other legislative initiatives concern the necessary knowledge of the Russian language and history, as well as of the foundations of federal legislation, and provide for very strict and elaborate procedures for issuing certificates in this regard, which will be subject to further verification by educational institutions that receive this official responsibility from the government.

Jarovaja reported that the stricter verifications ‘have already reduced the number of certificates issued fourfold’, but this still seemed too little to the deputies, and further restrictions and bans have been introduced for associations that are also quite qualified, but are considered too migrant-friendly.

According to Volodin, it is necessary to restrict them to ‘professional areas’ with specialists directly supervised by the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Education and the Rosobnadzor agency. In language examination rooms there must be ‘surveillance equipment’ that prevents ‘any form of cheating and corruption of examination boards’.

A further proposal concerns internet resources that offer services for the completion of papers, and Jarovaja declared the need to ‘permanently close the market for illegal services’, supported by the head of the Information Policy Committee, Aleksandr Khinštein, who called this initiative ‘very timely and significant’.

Some deputies proposed to merge all these changes into a single law to be applied automatically to each variant of these issues, but Jarovaja assured that ‘we need to detail the measures, to allow for immediate and appropriate reactions before any legislative procedure’.

Finally, the latest bill presented adds punishments for legal entities that support illegal immigration in various ways to the many violations already considered, with fines and restrictions for falsifying or incorrectly formulating entry, work and residence documents in Russia.

All proposals were approved unanimously except the last one where there was one abstention, which Volodin declared an ‘obvious miscalculation of votes’.

Photo: Flickr / Fred S.