By Vestnik Kavkaza
The struggle against illegal migration, which is being actively undertaken at the moment, hasn’t brought the expected results yet. However, experts say that if immigration is not regulated within strict legal and executive limits, it will negatively influence the economy, inter-ethnic relations, and the criminal situation in Russia.
Irina Yarovaya, Head of the State Duma Committee for Security and Anti-Corruption Enforcement, thinks that “when we speak about an economic effect, how it correlates to a formed criminal economic effect which we get from illegal migration. Actually we have groups which deal with commercial activity and create not only unhealthy competition, but also a direct criminal threat.”
“An unhealthy competition level has been formed, as certain employers are interested in hiring illegal migrants due to low expenses, absence of social responsibility and other advantages which impossible to be achieved with Russian employees,” the MP considers.
Moreover, according to Yarovaya, “a number of crimes which involve migrants grew by 10% and it is significant that a number of violent crimes grew by 25%. Thus, when we speak about an economic effect and advantages, it is important to understand and calculate expenditures of the state on exclusion of illegal migrants from the country, establishing of special facilities.”
Yarovaya believes that “efforts of the state should be directed not at capturing illegal migrants and keeping them in special facilities, but at proper regulation of a legal status of an illegal labor migrant. Illegal migration is essence of incorrectly settled issues of labor migration. For rules and requirements of the law on labor migrants won’t be dummy, i.e. no record of conviction, speaking the language, good health; for people who come to our country as migrants could legalize their status and make it consistent, we need that the dactylographic system, checking convictions, health check, speaking language should be undertaken not in subway due to fake licenses, but in united centers. They should provide such complex check arrangements,” the MP states.
“All these things demand actual real approval which should be provided by united centers and a united electronic document. It will enable an information exchange all over our big country and between all responsible bodies,” she says.
Speaking about an employer’s responsibility, Yarovaya noted that it could be real only if there is a serious reason for hiring a labor migrant who has a necessary document: “In all other cases the responsibility will be dummy. But if we launch a united consistent system, the fact of hiring a person who has no such an electronic document will mean calling to account, including criminal liability. I believe such centers should be built on the border, before entering the Russian territory. Cooperation with the CIS countries enables us to solve the issues.”
