The Russian Interior has prepared a draft law banning the provision of certain services to migrants who are in the country under illegal conditions.

TASS reports that the draft law prohibits foreigners being in the country under illegal conditions from registering a car and any property, opening a bank account and getting married.

The draft law notes that a foreigner is considered to be in the mode of controlled stay from the date of entry of information about it into the relevant register.

“Supervised stay is a legal regime applied to a foreign citizen, who stays in the Russian Federation and does not have legal grounds for staying (residing) in the Russian Federation or who has provided knowingly false information or documents during the migration registration,” the document says.  

Recall, new amendments made to Russia’s legislation provide for a new procedure requiring migrants working in Russia to notify the interior ministry of their place of work.

The Russian Interior Ministry’s official website says that in order to fight this and better control places of work of foreigners, foreigners working in Russia on a patent are obligated to send to the interior ministry not only a copy of their contract with an employer within two months from the date of issue of the patent, but also fill out and send a notice of place of work, to which a copy of such a contract, if any, is attached.

The Interior Ministry’s proposal is another step by the Russian authorities to tighten migration legislation.  Thus, in mid-October, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, proposed depriving migrants who have received a Russian passport of citizenship if they do not want to take part in the war against Ukraine.  Soon after this, the Moscow Investigative Committee opened 22 criminal cases against natives of Central Asia, who had previously received Russian citizenship, for evading military service.

Labor migrants are still a critical component in the economy of Tajikistan, keeping many struggling families at home above the poverty line. 

According to data from the Russian Interior Ministry, driven by a lack of economic opportunities in Tajikistan, more than 1 million Tajiks travel to Russia for work each year. 

Meanwhile, some sources note that the worsening state of the Russian economy and sustained abuse from law enforcement there is pushing ever more expatriate laborers from Tajikistan to seek out alternative countries in which to find work.