The package of documents submitted to the government last week essentially proposes a complete change in the rules for quota-setting for foreign workers in Russia. Labor migrants can apparently forget about the full abolition of quotas for citizens of CIS states that have a visa-free regime with Russia.
“No one has abolished quotas for foreigners and no one is going to,” Denis Soldatikov, deputy head of the public relations department of the FMS, told Vremya Novostei. “If earlier the number of foreign citizens from Commonwealth countries was regulated by the employment center, on the basis of whose data permits were issued to almost everyone, now regions will have to submit applications for the number of personnel they need, and the government will set limits based on these figures.” Today, according to the FMS press service, quotas apply to all foreign citizens, including residents of those CIS countries with which Russia maintains a visa-free regime (that is, all Commonwealth countries except Georgia and Turkmenistan). However, “visa-free” migrants have significant concessions under quota setting compared to their Georgian and Turkmen counterparts. According to statistics from the Federal Migration Service, of the 358,922 CIS citizens who entered the country legally in the first half of 2006, only 3,500 Georgians and 331 Turkmen were among them. And the main flow of guest workers comes from Uzbekistan (more than 60,000), Moldova (almost 36,000), and Armenia (27,500).
The migration service believes that the new rules for setting quotas, the essence of which is not disclosed until Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov reviews the document, will not create discord among foreign workers from the former Soviet republics. “These measures are not discriminatory,” Interfax quotes Konstantin Poltoranin, head of the FMS public relations department. “The requirements for migrants from different CIS countries will be absolutely identical.” In his opinion, the new course of migration policy will only create an “effective mechanism for regulating labor migration” that will not “violate the rights of the indigenous population.” To protect the interests of Russians, as well as to unify legislation with the European Union, it is planned to halve, from six months to 90 days, the period of continuous stay in Russia for all labor migrants who have a multiple-entry annual visa.
Well, as already reported, these measures should be supplemented by an increase in fines for violating the migration regime. In particular, starting January 15, even private individuals will be fined from 20 to 50 times the minimum monthly wage for hiring guest workers without appropriate permission to work on garden plots. For officials of companies using foreign labor without permission, the fine will be from 200 to 500 times the minimum monthly wage, and for the companies themselves – up to 8,000 times the minimum monthly wage. Moreover, the fine will have to be paid individually for each illegal worker hired. In addition, the foreigner himself, whose stated purpose of entry into Russia turns out to be inconsistent with his activities, will pay a fine of 20 to 50 times the minimum monthly wage and will most likely be deported.
According to Alexander Moskalets, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on constitutional legislation and state building, quota-setting for attracted foreign workers, which the law placed under the jurisdiction of the federal government, is a completely justified measure. “Shouldn't there be regional quotas? After all, everyone will want to come where it is cozy and warm. But we are not going to create a continuous resort zone on the territory of the country,” the deputy stated.
Human rights activists who help migrants and immigrants settle and legalize in Russia, on the contrary, believe that strict quota-setting is a reason for corruption. “No matter how these quotas are revised, the people who really wait for them do not get them,” lamented Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the organization Migration and Law. “It is very sad that the state wants to regulate everything in the world. Well, who is stopping a Muscovite from becoming a janitor or a construction worker now? No one. But they don't go.”