“A migrant entering the country or the employer who invited him will be obliged to deposit this amount in an authorized bank account and only then will receive a work permit,” comments the movement’s head Konstantin Klimenko. The deposit information will be entered into the labor migrant’s card on an electronic chip.
As the weekly 'Itogi' notes, the figure was not taken from thin air. About 1,000 dollars is what the deportation of one illegal migrant costs the Russian budget today. A month in a special detention center costs 15,000 rubles, and a plane ticket, say, to Dushanbe costs 10-12 thousand. Thus, only for one illegal Tajik the treasury spends at least 25,000 rubles per month.
Over the past year, 2,327 people were deported from Russia to Tajikistan. That is, their journey home cost the Russian treasury 58 million rubles. According to the Federal Migration Service, there are about 3.5 million illegal migrants on the territory of the Russian Federation. And that is already billions of unforeseen expenses.
True, it is not entirely clear what will happen if the visitor turns out to be law-abiding. “Personal funds deposited into the bank account cannot be withdrawn,” Klimenko explains, “but they can be used with the card to pay for medical services, administrative fines, and necessary taxes. The state will dispose of the deposit balance.”
It is clear that illegal migration is an acute problem. The question is different: how does the 'prohibitive barrier' relate to the fact that the country’s economy urgently needs external labor resources?