The children of illegal immigrants being moved from unsafe housing in St. Petersburg
Photo: Mikhail Razuvaev
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Moscow Migrant Policy Questioned
The Federal Migration Service is alarmed by Moscow city government plans to reduce the quota on the number of migrant workers in the city from 750,000 to 250,000 in 2008. Deputy head of the FMS foreign migrant labor department Sergey Boldyrev told Kommersant that the city's request may not be approved, since it will lead to a labor shortage and an increase in illegal workers and force the city to request another adjustment of it quota the following year.
The city's plans have been officially announced by chairman of the city's committee on interregional ties and ethnic policy Alexey Alexandrov. The quota on workers from countries that do not have a visa procedure will be cut to a third, and the number of workers from countries where visas are required to enter Russia will be reduced from 80,000 to 50,000. The plan has already been approved by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
Moscow has been critical of the FMS quota system. Alexandrov noted that Moscow has issued 426,000 work permits to foreigners this year, but employers have filed papers for only 111,000 foreign workers. “There is no federal or regional organ that can say where more than 300,000 foreign workers are employed,” he noted.
Work permits are issued annually. If the quota on foreign workers is reduced to 250,000, at least 200,000 workers who currently have permits will be denied them next year. “Moscow is causing a problem for itself,” Boldyrev opined. “It's not clear how the city will fill in the gap after such a quota reduction… The problem with internal migration is even worse than with foreign migration.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 03, 2007
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