Legal Aspect: migration question – the present and the future

The recording of the program is available here.

The source of the publication – official website of the Echo Moskvy radio station.

Y.ROZOVA – Good afternoon. My name is Yana Rozova. I am accompanied by Yury Pilipenko, author of the “Legal Aspect” program, Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", vice-president of the Federal Chamber of Advocates of Russia.

Y.PILIPENKO – Good afternoon everyone in the studio. Good afternoon, dear audience.

Y.ROZOVA – And our guests. Evgeny Bobrov, head of the Migration Policy Committee of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, laureate of the Moscow Helsinki Group Award “For courage in the protection of human rights”.

E.BOBROV – Hello.

Y.ROZOVA – And Vladimir Tor - chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Democratic Party.

V.TOR – Good afternoon.

Y.ROZOVA – In this program, we discuss the events of political, economic and social life from the legal point of view. The today’s theme is migration: the present and the future. Let us hear what the motive for this program was.

INFORMATION

President Putin has signed the draft law that fixes the measure of liability for regional public officials in the sphere of inter-ethnic relations. Those officials now may be fired, should they allow mass violations of human rights and liberties for racial, national or religious reasons in their territories. The President, in his speech to the Federal Assembly, also mentioned the need to make the punishment for illegal migration stricter. Minister of internal affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev, in his turn, acknowledged that 57 regions this year have registered an increase in the number of the crimes committed by migrants, and that the organization of illegal migration has tripled in comparison with the last year. Konstantin Romodanovsky, head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS), adds that there are currently 11 millions of foreign citizens in Russia, and the number of those entering Russia has grown by 40% during the last few years.

Y.PILIPENKO – Obviously, our country has always needed worker migrants. I daresay that the children of a certain Northern lad, a Swede or a Dane called Rurik, were the first guest workers. It was his children, sons Kiy, Schek, Horiv and their sister Lybed, who founded the city of Kiev on the coasts of Dnepr in the VI century. And they ruled our country for a long but not very happy time, until the moment the poor Prince Dmitry was assassinated in Uglich. You remember that tale that our country is great but there is no one to rule it; come and rule us.

The next wave of the worker migration was perhaps related to the German settlers. There has not existed such country as Germany for quite a long time, but there were Germans, and they gladly came to our country, settling down everywhere from Arkhangelsk to the Volga region. You might remember that one German damsel, whose maiden name was Sophie Auguste Friederike von Ahnhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, was lucky in her marriage and became the Russian Empress Ekaterina the Great. By the way, this year, practically the next month, is the 400th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty. And the Romanovs are genealogically, perhaps, 70% German. This is another example of worker migration to our country.

There were other examples. For instance, the internal migration, when Tatars were yardmen in both capitals in the XIX and early XX centuries, Yaroslavl commoners were waiters, those from Vladimir – carpenters, from Smolensk and Kaluga – carters. By the way, an interesting experiment on worker migration was made in the XX century, during the Soviet period. You might remember the thousands of Vietnamese, who were brought to Moscow and put to work at the conveyor belts of AZLK and ZIL.

Y.ROZOVA – That was a very interesting story. Agreements for 4 to 6 years were executed with them, and they were not able to change their place of employment without the employer’s consent.

Y.PILIPENKO – The history of our country contains such completely different worker migration episodes. So what is happening now? Are we facing an inter-civilizational, inter-galactic catastrophe? I remind that our program is called “Legal Aspect”, and the first thing I’d like to know from our guests is what they think about the legal regulation of the worker migration, how adequately and completely it reflects the today’s realities. Thank you. Who would like to go first?

V.TOR – Let me be the first to speak on the matter. First of all, I’d like to thank you for the astounding historical discoveries you have made. For example, the descendants of Rurik, who came to Russia in the IX century, are suddenly the founders of Kiev in the VI century. This is an amazing historical discovery, worth of much thinking and reflection.

Y.ROZOVA – Shall we get back to the subject?

V.TOR – Getting back to the subject. We forgot some worker migrants – the Tatar Mongols. Those worker migrants from Middle Asia used to come to Russia too and gave the indigenous populace something to think about. Regarding the current situation – the first thing we need if identification of the beneficiaries of the process. Law has a beneficiary, in whose interests it is done. I am convinced that all political processes should benefit the citizens of the Russian Federation.

Y.PILIPENKO – I beg your pardon but I cannot help reminding of the classical saying: “Law is the will of the ruling class expressed in the legislative form”.

V.TOR – Or that of the ruling ethnos. I like it more this way. Do we actually need a lot of migrants? I seriously doubt it. Russia nowadays has the historical maximum of labor resources. There are currently more workers in Russia than during Stalin’s industrialization. You should agree that the productiveness of labor has grown immensely, and completely new problems have surfaced. Obviously the migrants are very many. 11 million people spoken of by Mr. Romodanovsky mean that, as they say, the shah certified his own complete inability.

Y.ROZOVA – He also said that his Service kept 300 thousand out.

V.TOR – He has mounted a heroic defense, but somewhere away. The people do not need so many migrants. Migrants create serious problems in the society that are related with social and ethnic tension, which is followed by a wave of crimes, drug traffic, sanitary and epidemiological problems. This needs to be stopped.

Y.ROZOVA – In your opinion, how many migrants should there be in our country nowadays?

V.TOR – In my opinion, the yearly decrease of the number of migrants by millions is currently on the agenda. The process is difficult but it needs to be initiated.

Y.ROZOVA – Evgeny, do you agree?

E.BOBROV – Of course not. I believe that all our problems in the sphere of migration policy and worker migration are mainly due to the imperfections of the legislation and to corruption. The current migration legislation includes over 800 federal laws including the amendments.

Y.PILIPENKO – Surely you mean not only laws but also Government resolutions and by-laws.

E.BOBROV – No, federal laws only. If we include Government resolutions and all amendments to those, the numbers will be in the tens of thousands. Approximately 50 federal laws and amendments have been adopted during the latest couple of years, and it didn’t improve the situation. I fully agree with Alexander Gorbenko, Deputy Mayor of Moscow, that the migration laws need to be fully rewritten, as do the laws in the sphere of citizenship, legal status of foreign citizens, worker migration, expulsion, deportation, everything else, in such a way so as to put the protection of the indigenous population as of the points. I’d even say the most important point of all. Speaking on the number of migrants we need, I can’t answer the question, which itself seems quite rhetorical. Business knows how many workers it needs. Another question is who those workers will be, migrants or not. Those people, who come to work here, they are not migrants. Our forefathers, who came to settle the borderlands of the former Empire, can hardly be called migrants. They are shift workers. So I’d prefer not calling them migrants at all. Some ethnos that migrate looking for better luck, are not too eager to work, refuse all culture but their own – those are migrants. And these people come to work. And stricter or more regulated liability of the heads of the units of the Federation is not the problem. Normal rules of the game need to be established first, to define what a person should do.

Y.PILIPENKO – And what is your understanding of those normal game rules? The idea of visas has circulated much recently. Two completely different persons – the President of our country and Alexey Navalny, an opposition activist – spoke their views of the matter. Whose viewpoint do you support?

E.BOBROV – It seems to me that the idea of visas is not well-considered. After all, we are moving towards the Customs Union, and we should not only assimilate worker migrants but take economic measures to bring, first of all, Russians from the regions into the economy and not migrants. How can this be achieved? The amendments to the legislation have already been made imposing on the employer the duty to ensure the provision of all employees, foreigners included, with voluntary insurance policies for the entire period of their stay. I would also add the duty to finance of the possible expulsion by preliminary deposit of money with a bank – not by a letter of guarantee, after which the firm sometimes dissolves, but by real money. This is because the expulsion of a single person costs approximately 40 thousand roubles.

V.TOR – I’d like to indicate the points that I agree with my esteemed opponent. There is no doubt that the situation with the legislation requires writing the migration laws anew. What we have now is completely useless, it is outrageous, and it fulfills no functions. The second moment is what I don’t agree with. The new law should set clear objectives. In our situation, what the society demands is the objective. Vox populi – vox dei. There must be fewer migrants. This is obvious. I wouldn’t invent new terms for migrants. They may be called beautiful roses, or fragrant lilies, whatever. But there is a legal, scientific social term – migrants. Let us use it. Now to how implement this. I am not yet ready to say precisely how many migrants should there be in Russia. I can, however, say that at least one order less. How to achieve this? Visa regime is necessary. In this regard, I fully support Alexey Navalny. It is easy for me, because it would be more correct to say that Alexey Navalny supports us. The National Democrats, whom I represent, were the first ones to voice the visa idea.

Y.ROZOVA – Visas – that’s one thing.

V.TOR – The second one is equipping the border. The third thing – when the guest worker crosses the border, he must know already the region and the employer he will work for. No guest workers are needed in Moscow, but they are welcome to do jobs in Siberia, if needed. Precisely there, for a fixed period of time and without the right to change employers and regions during the validity of the contract. The gust worker’s labor may not be remunerated cheaper than the labor of a citizen of Russia. This should be fixed in the law.

E.BOBROV – Quite correct.

V.TOR – Dumping at the labor market must be destroyed. The taxes that the employer pays for a guest employee can in no way be lower than for a citizen of Russia. Furthermore, gust workers must pay insurance contributions at the border crossing. It does not have to be the entire amount of his removal costs, but it must be a contract with, say, an insurance company that would provide for the process of his expulsion. They say that the border is underequipped and that the guest workers will slip through. This is not true. There is the international experience.

Y.ROZOVA – We’ll have news now. Another information, and we’ll carry on after the news.

INFORMATION

The first resolution of the Government of Russia on regulation of the foreign workforce was issued 20 years ago. Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov signed an instruction around the same period, enabling migrants brought by construction companies to receive temporary registration for three months. The construction companies defined the number of the workers and their terms of stay upon agreement with the construction department. There was also a lack of workers in the sphere of transport, so the city government permitted Mosgortrans to bring up to 5 thousand of drivers from out of the city and the CIS countries for up to 6 months each year. Also, the employers could obtain special permissions to bring foreign workforce by paying duty in the amount of the minimum wage to the city.

NEWS

Y.ROZOVA – Yury Pilipenko, author of the “Legal Aspect” program, Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", vice-president of the Federal Chamber of Advocates of Russia; Evgeny Bobrov, head of the Migration Policy Committee of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, laureate of the Moscow Helsinki Group Award “For courage in the protection of human rights”; and Vladimir Tor - chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Democratic Party are in the studio. Vladimir, you were speaking about what we should do and how to resolve the problem before the news started.

V.TOR – How to resolve the problem of capturing illegal migrants from the legal point of view? The same way criminals are captured in the USA. Bounties are put.

Y.ROZOVA – That’s cruel.

V.TOR – Why? We don’t suggest killing them.

Y.ROZOVA – But they are not animals.

V.TOR – Of course not. They are simple offenders of the law. Bounty should be declared for each criminal and licenses to capture them issued. I assure you, they all will be caught quickly and for very little money.

Y.PILIPENKO – You have provoked me into expressing a rather disputable point of view: the current situation with the worker migration resembles slavery to some extent. This is simply an economic structure, which we have to fight, because production relations and productive forces are in a harmony. I was pleasantly surprised to know that you have a clear program and an understanding of the things to be done in the sphere on the new law regulating the worker migration. Do you share your ideas with anyone?

V.TOR – Of course. Staring with the E Center and on to the public during the Russian Marches.

FOR INFORMATION

The FMS and the Moscow authorities each year say that the quotas for worker migrants will be lowered. However, it has remained at the same level – 200 thousand people during the last three years. However, there currently are approximately 3 million of migrants only in Moscow, according to unofficial information. The Department of labor and employment informs that commerce and repairs required the most foreign workers – 33%, with construction in the second place (26%), followed by hotel business and manufacturing industry with 5% each.

Y.ROZOVA – I am monitoring the situation through SMS. The computer has exploded: everyone is shouting SOS because there are no yardmen. It seems to me that migrants are needed, and let them be. Alas, unfortunately, our law is constructed in such a way that they are forced to violate it. They wouldn’t like to, maybe, but it happens so.

E.BOBROV – The FMS officials themselves at times don’t know how to perform under the law: whether the person has a patent, whether the person’s migration registration should be extended. The Temporary Confinement Center for foreign nationals in the Severny village is full of persons, who were not carrying their passports.

Y.ROZOVA – The employers took them, right?

E.BOBROV – Perhaps it was the employers. Or they slept away from the place of their registration. What’s the big deal: he is registered at one address and he slept for one night in a different place. What’s so bad about that? And for other reasons. That is, they are brought to administrative liability in the form of expulsion for such insignificant things that it boggles the mind. The amendments entered into force in August, according to which any violation of migration, labor legislation and the laws on the stay of foreign citizens brings expulsion, and there is no alternative. There used to be fines and expulsion, and now only expulsion remains. We will have to expel millions from Moscow only. Why? We should simplify the rules and impose on them, as you say, the liability for slavery.

Y.ROZOVA – And how can we make the employers follow the law?

E.BOBROV – We should not make anything stricter. We should apply the current legislation.

V.TOR – Right. What is the way to fight rapes? Revocation of the rape article in the penal code. No rapes. Great reasoning.

Y.PILIPENKO – We should remember that any resident of Middle Asia, who enters our country’s territory, may remain here for 90 days fully legally, without work permit or patent. Another thing is that they sometimes start working during those 90 days without the permit and the patent. But I think that there are currently no reasons to expel the person who came to our country without a visa before the 90 days are over.

V.TOR – Of course. Because there are no visas yet.

E.BOBROV – And here the deputies come and suggest cutting the term of their stay to 45 days, which will double the FMS’s workload. And they think this will not cause any extra budget expenses? What’s the sense?

V.TOR – The first step of any moves of ordering the migration sphere must be firing Mr.Romodanovsky.

Y.ROZOVA – Is this the only way?

V.TOR – It certainly is.

Y.ROZOVA – And your appointment to that position.

V.TOR – I am ready.

E.BOBROV – The FMS is so corrupt it does not want to fight it. I recently asked one deputy head of the FMS, who supervised the passport work, how it was possible to purchase a passport for 100 roubles via Internet. The site of the FMS says that such passport was actually issued. “This question is very complicated for me, I cannot answer it”.

V.TOR – Well, I can. It has been known for a long time that the fish’s head is the first to rot. Look, the Service is corrupt through and through – and Romodanovsky is not responsible? That’s a story of wonder.

Y.PILIPENKO – I profess the presumption of innocence, and hence cannot agree with you. I’d like to ask you, what should we do about the yardmen? Who will work in their stead?

V.TOR – An information wave has been started that oh my God, oh my God, there are no yardmen, we is gonna die, a plane will crash and there will be nobody to clear the debris. What I want to say to you, esteemed PR-persons, who actively develop the subject, is the following. The organizational conclusions, which should be drawn from the message, are very different from those you suggest. This does not mean that the Muscovites need to take up the yardman’s profession ASAP. Not at all. This means that those persons, who head the janitorial organizations of Moscow, need to take up other professions ASAP. That is a mafia, it must disappear into oblivion, it must vanish from the market.

Y.ROZOVA – Loud words only, Vladimir. We certainly strive for that.

V.TOR – A yardman’s salary is 54 thousand roubles. Yardmen actually are paid much less.

Y.ROZOVA – 2 or 3 times less.

V.TOR – The rest is stolen. Therefore, if a certain plot is not being cleaned, this is not a reason to scream the need to immediately import 10 thousand guest workers. This is a reason to say that the head of the plot should be immediately dismissed. I say with all authority: give me 54 thousand roubles for each plot to clean, and tomorrow I will take the contract for the entire city of Moscow.

Y.PILIPENKO – The yardman in my yard is paid 20 thousand roubles. I don’t know, where the 54 thousand roubles came from.

V.TOR – This was communicated by the deputies.

Y.PILIPENKO – I think this information is erroneous.

V.TOR – So it’s your word against mine. 54 thousand, say the documents. Where is the rest of the money?

E.BOBROV – Order should be restored and inevitability of punishment ensured for those salvers and other people, who receive money from this and sell fake documents.

Y.ROZOVA – Is a fine sufficient?

E.BOBROV – To begin with, a fine for officials is sufficient.

Y.ROZOVA – What fine amount is required in order to cause the employer to have fear?

E.BOBROV – The employers currently bear the liability of fines of up to, and exceeding, 800 thousand roubles for each migrant without work permit.

Y.PILIPENKO – Don’t you think that this is a natural process – convergence of peoples?

E.BOBROV – Of course it’s natural.

Y.PILIPENKO – What do you say, Vladimir?

V.TOR – My family living in my flat – that’s what’s natural to me. And I would not like it if my flat had no lock and no doors and were everybody’s flat. This flat is mine, and I’d like my children to be my children.

E.BOBROV – Well, I, for one, don’t care, who sweeps my yard. If a person has motivation to work well, it does not matter if he is a migrant, of what ethnos, and if he has any problems at all. The most important thing is to create conditions for them, so that they would not be insulted, so that they would know Russian to some extent, so that they could communicate with us, provide us Muscovites with services and defend their rights in the most elementary way. Neither the employees nor the diasporas are currently responsible for the rights of those people.

V.TOR – This point of view is very naïve. The facts tell us differently. Mass migration is followed by crimes, inter-ethnic tension, mafias, and drug traffic. This must be fought, this must be stopped.

Y.ROZOVA – Do you see anything good in migrants?

V.TOR – Nothing at this point.

Y.PILIPENKO – And many Muscovites think that they are more hard=-working than our fellow citizens.

V.TOR – Say this in Biriulevo and listen to what the Muscovites there have to say.

Y.ROZOVA – Moscow is large, beside Biriulevo.

V.TOR – And what district is the next to blow up? Do you seriously think that only Biriulevo is problematic? I assure you, Muscovites see this problem everywhere. That’s why sparks flew, that’s why the authorities were so scared by Biriulevo. There will be another eruption, and another, and many more eruptions.

Y.PILIPENKO – God forbid this happens.

Y.ROZOVA – We are almost out of time. Yury, let us traditionally sum up.

Y.PILIPENKO – On one hand, I learned the opinion of our guests that the legislation in the sphere needs to be worked with thoroughly and well. Vladimir suggested an entire program. I really hope there is a way to bring all those ideas to the lawmakers’ attention. On the other hand, I’d like to draw some attention to one paradox. A great son of the Russian people, Lev Gumilev, was literally obsessed by the steppes. He believed that our allies and best friends lived in the steppes and he was skeptical towards the Western values. Paradoxically, the Great Steppes are knocking virtually on every our door and in every our yard years after his death. Quite possibly, we should be more tolerant and patient towards that. Possibly, the Great Steppes if the fate of our Russia.

V.TOR – This is not the first time that Tatar-Mongols are knocking on Russia’s door. We should not be tolerant about that.

Y.ROZOVA – Still, I’d like to remember the words of Thilo Sarrazin, a German politician. Let us all hear them. Thank you very much. It has been very interesting.

INFORMATION

The can and must be migration in the future too. Mobile, energetic and business-like persons should have the opportunity to go on their way at any time and to earn their living where they like – provided they integrate into the culture of their adoptive country and finally become a part of it, if they settle down for a long period.