Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) proposed to introduce a controlled stay regime for illegal migrants, which provides for a number of prohibitions and restrictions for them. TASS reported this news with reference to MIA’s draft law.
“Controlled stay is a legal regime applied […] to a foreign citizen staying in the Russian Federation and has no legal grounds for stay (residence) in the Russian Federation or who has knowingly provided false information or documents in the course of migrants' registration,” the agency quotes an excerpt from the document.
According to the document, a foreign citizen is considered to be in the regime of a controlled stay from the date of entering personal information in the register. The grounds for this may be:
- expiration of the term of temporary stay, temporary residence permit, residence permit;
- illegal border crossing;
- annulment of visa, refugee status or temporary asylum, citizenship.
Those under control are obliged to inform about their whereabouts, change of place of stay, date, place and route of planned independent departure from Russia. In case of violation, they can be deported.
At the same time, foreigners will have the right to request the reasons justifying applicability of the controlled stay regime to them. They will also be able to appeal against the actions or omissions of officials.
The bill sets consequential limitations on those to whom such a regime applies. These are:
- a ban on state registration of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs;
- a ban on the purchase and sale of real estate, vehicles and self-propelled machines;
- a ban on placing real estate on the country’s cadastral registration;
- a ban on state registration of vehicles;
- a ban on driving a car, a possible denial in taking licensure examinations and replacement of driving licenses.
In addition, Russia’s MIA proposes to restrict illegal migrants from opening bank accounts, transferring money and marrying.
According to MIA, innovations will help to identify illegal migrants and “remove” them from the territory of Russia. Now in Russia there are 6.4 million foreign citizens. Most of them arrived to the country for working purposes, the head of the main department of MIA on migration Valentina Kazakova has reported earlier. In 2022, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were listed as the three leaders in terms of the inflow of migrant workers to Russia.
