Having called a press conference, Colonel General Chernenko tried to appear in the eyes of guest workers almost like the real Father Frost, urging them to write letters to officials and generally promising a radical "change of vector" in Russia's migration policy. "For ten years we have been on the cheap drug of illegal labor. The main problem now is to create conditions in which labor migrants would not be victims of the Russian state but become wards," said the FMS director.
According to him, a turning point in relations between the authorities and visitors will come after the adoption of a new law currently being prepared in the FMS. "If this law is adopted, people will choose for themselves the registration procedure: they can come in person or send a letter," the head of the service explained. "The law will allow a migrant to avoid contacts with an official. He will simply send a registered letter by mail, in which he will report his address of residence and also attach documents from the employer."
The notification nature of migrant registration and remote communication with officials of the passport and visa and migration service, according to General Chernenko, "will make it possible to bypass all barriers, all this corruption and bribes." Moreover, work on the new law, which is unprecedentedly liberal by Russian standards, is already nearing completion. According to Andrei Chernenko, before the end of the first ten days of January, that is, in just a week, the text of the document will be sent to the State Duma and experts. The FMS head ruled out any "political expediency" in the emergence of the new migration law and assured that "this procedure should become the main one in Russia."
At the same time, Mr. Chernenko did not deny the political expediency of the appearance of another document, also designed to radically change the attitude of authorities and officials towards visitors, but this time towards citizens of one's own state. The FMS head admitted that the government resolution signed at the end of last year, increasing to 90 days the period of stay of Russians without registration in another region, is directly related to a similar gift from the Russian president to Ukrainian guest workers.
Until Vladimir Putin, in an agitational impulse, promised softer conditions for citizens of Ukraine, which was electing its president, no one in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the government paid attention to the fact that Russian registration rules do not quite align with constitutional rights to freedom of movement. Perhaps after the election victory of Viktor Yushchenko, someone in the Kremlin regrets the earlier promises, but the majority of Russians came out of the "orange crisis" with at least some benefit.
By the way, the FMS also believes that over a month of "liberalism" in relations between Russian police officers and visitors from Ukraine, experience has been accumulated that will be useful when changing registration rules for Russians. General Chernenko called the easing for Ukrainians a "pilot project" and noted that during the new rules, the FMS received not a single complaint from citizens of the neighboring state.
It is not yet known whether Russians will complain. After all, the government resolution signed by Mikhail Fradkov is so far only a declaration of intent, not a guide to action, to which domestic officials and law enforcement officers are accustomed to work. Moreover, it has not yet entered into force because it was not officially published. At the same time, General Chernenko assured that for him personally the prime minister's order is already in effect and the FMS has begun to develop instructions on the procedure for applying the new registration rules, which will specifically outline how and by whom violators will be identified.
True, the head of the migration service could not not only reveal the secrets of this instruction, but even properly answer the simple and worrying question of what would be proof of compliance with the three-month period of stay in a foreign region: tickets, gas station receipts, or testimony of friends? After all, it is harder for Russians to provide evidence than for the same Ukrainians or other foreigners, who, according to law, should have a migration card with a mark of the date of crossing the Russian border.
Exactly what a Russian citizen will need to present in support of his words, Andrei Chernenko could not explain. "So far I can say one thing: we will not introduce any migration cards for Russians coming to other cities," he only noted. At the same time, answering a question from a correspondent of Vremya Novostei, the FMS head assured that no one is going to cancel document checks of passers-by on the streets after the registration rules are updated. "Checks must take place, but the police will no longer have the right to extort money," he stated.
Actually, because of this duality of statements by migration service leaders, Russian human rights activists treat the supposedly liberal initiatives of the authorities with a certain degree of caution. Welcoming Mr. Chernenko's promises on the whole, almost all of them added: "If, of course, in reality everything is as stated." Especially since before showing from afar the New Year bag of promised gifts, the FMS took care of increasing fines for lack of registration by 25 times. Also, the State Duma adopted in the third reading a bill introducing criminal liability for organizing the illegal entry of foreign citizens and stateless persons, providing for imprisonment for a considerable term - from two to five years.