“Apparently, we’ve already had enough of these illegal immigrants”

A few days after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spoke about migration problems, the Moscow police decided to create a special unit that would deal with illegal migrants. The problem is ripe, experts say, but they doubt that the new unit can be more effective than the Federal Migration Service.

“In the first half of the year alone, over 8 million foreign citizens came to Russia; now there are more than 10 million migrants in the country. But these, as always, are very, very rough estimates. ... Migration processes are constant. There is no need to be afraid of them, but they need to be managed, and this, perhaps, is the main thing. It is important to prevent negative manifestations of any kind, including the formation of enclaves from among foreign citizens. This negative phenomenon does not yet fully meet these tasks and the changes that are taking place throughout the world. “, therefore, we must radically change the management of migration processes,” the prime minister said on August 9 at a government meeting.

Already on August 13, the Moscow police announced that units had been created within the criminal investigation department to solve crimes related to the organization of illegal migration. Such a unit is already working in the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, and similar groups have begun working in the district police departments. However, for the entire multi-million city, where, according to experts, the number of illegal migrants reaches two million, only 71 people will work in this area, the press service of the Moscow police reports.

The police do not say how the new units will work, but the chairman of the independent police union, Mikhail Pashkin, suggested that law enforcement officers will find places where illegal migrants live, introduce their people there and find out what they are doing. “Apparently, we are already fed up with these illegal immigrants. The decision to create such a unit is connected with the growth of ethnic crime. As Kolokoltsev said at one time, in Moscow approximately 60% of crimes are committed by such comrades. The main thing here is to start,” he believes.

“The problem has matured, the boiling point has been passed. We have a huge number of illegal migrants, but most importantly, criminal associations have appeared that terrorize the migrants themselves. This is a consequence of irresponsible migration policy,” says the president of the Migration 21st Century Foundation, former deputy head FMS Vyacheslav Postavnin. But, in his opinion, creating a security unit is not the best solution to the problem. “This is an attempt to follow a simple path. We must fight not with the consequence, but with the causes. This phenomenon should not be simplified and reduced to the criminal legal component,” he adds.

“Illegal migration arises due to the fact that we have free, visa-free entry into the country, a complex legalization process, huge needs for labor resources - whether we want it or not. In some regions there is an overabundance of migrants who are already beginning to squeeze out the indigenous population, At the same time, there is no system for managing migration flows. But this should be a completely different view - not the OVIR punitive mechanism, but a flexible one that would use market mechanisms," Postavnin believes.

In his opinion, it makes no sense to establish such a parallel structure with the FMS: “Does this mean that the migration control that exists in the FMS is not coping with its task? Maybe it would be better to strengthen control in the FMS itself, otherwise we will only corrupt this new division.” . Mikhail Pashkin is more optimistic about the created department: since the FMS bodies are not subordinate to the police, some will be able to identify shortcomings in the work of others, creating competition.