Russian officials worried influx of migrants becomes unmanageable

June 11, 2013 JRL Russia List Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Population Disaster, Demographics, Race, Ethnic, Extremism, Xenophobia

(Interfax – June 6, 2013) The influx of migrants in Russia is becoming alarming, head of the Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovskiy has said, as quoted by Interfax news agency on 6 June.

“For the last four years, we have recorded a significant increase in the number of immigrants to Russia. It was especially high in 2012 and 2013. Certainly, this is a matter of concern,” Romodanovskiy said at a meeting of the Council of Heads of the CIS Migration Services on 6 June.

“A significant number of them are coming to Russia with the intention to find a job but without proper training,” the head of the Federal Migration Service said.

“Of course, the burden on the receiving side, the Russian Federation, is growing, especially in megalopolises: Moscow, St Petersburg, and Moscow and Leningrad regions,” the head of the Federal Migration Service said.

Earlier Romodanovskiy said Russia might introduce “invitation-only” entry for CIS citizens to manage migration flows better.

“A visa regime is not quite relevant at the moment. Entry by invitation can be discussed with countries which supply the largest numbers of migrants to Russia, but here we need to do some extra work, this is a difficult issue,” he said.

The FMS has said that the introduction of a visa regime with the CIS countries would not help the fight against illegal migration but would harm humanitarian affairs.

“The residents of big cities are understandably angry, and we have to react to this. Our goal is not to let into the country those who are just wandering around streets with no steady income,” Romodanovskiy said at a meeting of the Duma committee on security and fight against corruption on 4 June.

In April deputy head of the Federal Migration Service Anatoliy Fomenko said that in Russia there were about 10.5m foreigners, of whom 2.5m are citizens of Uzbekistan, 1.1m of Tajikistan, more than 500,000 of Kyrgyzstan, 1.3m of Ukraine and more than 500,000 of Moldova.

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said that the problem of migrants is one of the weakest points in Russia’s ethnic policy, RIA Novosti reported on 6 June.

She was speaking at a meeting of the consultative council for interethnic relations under the Federation Council chairman.

According to the meeting’s documents, “the unity of the peoples of Russia is being seriously tested by threats of the spread of xenophobia and extremism, including their radical forms, mass migration processes in the world and the Russian Federation, and the present demographic situation”.

Matviyenko said that the emergence of new conflict hotspots in regions which had previously been rather peaceful was worrying. “These are serious signals for us. We need to constantly analyse the situation and improve the legislation,” she said.

She said the future of the Russian language causes particular concern and the federal law “On the state language of the Russian Federation” should be used more effectively for the adaptation of migrants and their integration into the social and cultural life.