“Russia should not serve migrants, migration should serve Russia”
Recently, a press conference titled “Our Future: How Migration and Demography are Changing Russia and Moscow” was held at the press center of the “Public Security Service” news agency. The event concluded intense discussions by bringing together critical issues such as birth rates, family income, housing affordability, labor migration, and urban security.
At the conference, Mikhail Delyagin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, put forward a series of strict and serious proposals aimed at fundamentally changing migration policy.
In his speech, Mikhail Delyagin emphasized the need for strict control over migration processes. According to the deputy, migration should be exclusively labor-based: the “arrived, worked, and left” principle should become the fundamental rule. He also proposed that labor migration be carried out only based on requests from specific organizations (targeted organized recruitment). In this case, the enterprises bringing in migrants should be personally responsible for all risks and potential damages associated with their stay in the country. Most importantly, the recruitment of foreign labor should be permitted only if no employees can be found among Russian citizens for those vacancies.
Review and audit of the citizenship granting system The deputy stated that it is time to end the practice of disorderly and easy issuance of Russian citizenship. In his opinion, Russian citizenship should be granted only to those individuals who are ready and able to accept the country's culture and become part of a single cultural environment. In this regard, Delyagin proposed a state-level audit (revision) of all citizenship cases granted since 2014. If it is determined that citizenship was granted illegally, it should be revoked without a statute of limitations, and the individual and all family members who obtained citizenship based on kinship ties should be expelled from the country.
Visa regime, criminal records, and restrictions on weapon ownership Security issues were also given special attention at the press conference. Other important measures proposed by Delyagin include:
* Introduction of a visa regime: A visa regime must be established based on bilateral agreements with donor countries of unskilled labor. If an agreement is not reached, the visa regime should be introduced unilaterally. * Absolute ban on criminal records: Migrants with a criminal record (even if the conviction has expired or been expunged) must be completely banned from entering Russia. * Social assistance and the right to own weapons: Any types of social assistance and the right to purchase weapons should be granted only to individuals who have continuously held Russian citizenship for 20 years. Individuals with dual citizenship should be prohibited from owning weapons. * Combating illegal multi-occupancy apartments: Apartments used for illegal registration and housing of migrants (“rubber apartments”) should be confiscated. * Preventing the formation of ethnic neighborhoods: It is necessary to prevent the emergence of separate ethnic territories (enclaves) in cities resulting from the dense settlement of representatives of certain nationalities.
