A way to avoid spending on the deportation of migrants has been proposed in Russia. Senator Vadim Dengin suggested that the Federation Council of Russia impose a mandatory fee on migrants to reduce the financial burden on the Russian budget in the context of migration policy. Dengin proposed an initiative that would require labor migrants […]
A way to avoid spending on the deportation of migrants has been proposed in Russia.
Senator Vadim Dengin suggested that the Federation Council of Russia impose a mandatory fee on migrants to reduce the financial burden on the Russian budget in the context of migration policy.
Dengin proposed an initiative that would require labor migrants entering Russia to prepay their travel home.
Migrants would need to deposit an amount equivalent to the cost of their airline ticket home into a special account.
These funds could be paid either by the migrants themselves or by the state from which they arrived. This innovation is aimed at reducing budget expenditures on the deportation of migrants, the senator noted.
Senator Vadim Dengin pointed out that in Russia, there are often cases where migrants are required to leave the country but claim they have no money, resulting in their deportation at the expense of the state budget, that is, at the expense of Russian taxpayers.
“It is wrong for Russia to pay for the way home for such people,” the senator believes.
Dengin intends to submit this bill to the State Duma by the end of the year, after coordinating it with the government of Russia.
The issue of imposing a mandatory fee on migrants for a return ticket home has been discussed for over ten years.
Such changes to Russian legislation were first proposed by deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. Back then, in September 2013, the discussion was about requiring foreign citizens entering Russia without a visa to have cash on hand at the time of entry amounting to at least six times the minimum living wage.
This is not the first bill aimed at tightening migration policy in Russia. Recently, Russian deputies and officials have increasingly competed to complicate life for migrants.
Recently, the Chairman of the Fair Russia – For Truth Party, the leader of the party faction in the State Duma, Sergey Mironov, proposed to deport “the entire family, the entire clan of a migrant who committed a crime” from Russia.
He also suggested limiting the allowable share of foreign workers to 5% of the total number of employed in each type of economic activity and completely banning the employment of migrants in taxi services, medical institutions, pharmacies, schools, and kindergartens.
Additionally, a group of deputies from the State Duma from the LDPR, led by party leader Leonid Slutsky, recently submitted a bill to the lower house that restricts labor migrants without Russian citizenship from bringing their families into the country.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, there are currently about 6.5 million migrants in Russia. According to unofficial data, this number is three to four times higher.
Tajik citizens have previously faced difficulties when entering Russia. There are special unwritten discriminatory rules that apply to migrants from Central Asia. They are usually detained at the border for hours, undergoing interrogations and having their personal belongings checked. Following the bloody attack on “Krokus City Hall” and the hostage-taking at a colony in Volgograd, Russian law enforcement agencies have further tightened control over Tajik citizens and intensified migration policy.