New raids in Russia: more than 500 migrants face deportation

As part of the “Migrant” operation, employees of the Main Investigative Department, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Guard are conducting mass checks in cafes, taxi stands, hostels, and apartments in cities and regions of Russia.

According to media reports, over the past week, law enforcement agencies have detained more than 6,000 migrants on charges of violating migration legislation. More than 300 criminal cases related to illegal immigrants have also been initiated, and 500 people have been placed in specialized camps — where they await deportation from Russia.

Law enforcement officers are also forcibly taking migrants who have received Russian citizenship to military enlistment offices for further dispatch to the war in Ukraine.

Tajik labor migrants complain that during these raids, law enforcement officers detain even those who have all their documents in order, taking them to police stations and holding them there without food or a place to sleep. According to the migrants, police officers treat them poorly.

Recently, the atmosphere of hostility towards migrants in Russia has intensified, with residents and authorities openly expressing their dissatisfaction with the presence of migrants. Dozens of anti-migrant groups and pages have emerged on social media. Law enforcement agencies are constantly conducting mass raids and checks against the backdrop of anti-migrant sentiments in the country, detaining migrants by the dozens, and some are being deported.

It has reached the point where posters urging labor migrants to go home have appeared in public places in cities and regions of Russia.

Earlier, residents of the city of Kotelniki in the Moscow region, in their video appeal to Putin, supported the mass checks of migrants by law enforcement agencies and called for an urgent halt to the influx of migrants entering the country. They also complained about “offenses” and the increasing number of migrants in the city. “The influx of migrants entering our country must be urgently stopped. Otherwise, there will be a social explosion,” said the residents of suburban Kotelniki.

Some State Duma deputies and officials have also made anti-migrant statements, calling for the introduction of visas with Central Asian countries, banning migrants from entering, or sending them to war.

Following these appeals, mass raids against migrants began in most cities and regions of Russia.