Pandemic Stress Testing Russia’s Migration Policy, Brod Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 11 – The coronavirus pandemic represents a stress test not only for Russia’s medical and social services sectors but also for its policies and management of the nine to 11 million immigrant workers, Aleksandr Brod says. To date, the country as a whole has coped remarkably well but some cases suggest that all is not well.

            In a comment for the Nazaccent portal, the rights activist who is a member of the Presidential Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations, says that with rare exceptions expectations that panic about the infection will lead to xenophobia and aggression have not proved to be the case (nazaccent.ru/content/32795-u-podnozhiya-pika.html).

            Brod cites a half a dozen attacks on immigrant workers since the pandemic arrived and one serious crime by a migrant against a Russian, but he says that as the crisis continues, pressures on both are building, on the first because of fears of competition for jobs and on the second because of uncertainty about their futures in the Russian Federation.

            Immigrant workers are in the worse position. If they lose their jobs, they may not be able to find another or to return home. They have problems with housing; and it is really only thanks to the embassies of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the three countries form which most Central Asian gastarbeiters come, that the situation has remained relatively calm.

            Russian government agencies, like the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, needs to provide a clearer road map for how to solve current problems and prevent them from growing into larger ones.  Immigrants need to know that there are places and people they can turn to and not fall into despair.

            Some officials in the government are “feeling their way” toward a solution, Brod says, pointing in particular to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin who has spoken out in favor of doing more for migrants. Russian officials and Russian businesses must do more to help them, he says (nazaccent.ru/content/32772-gazzaev-biznes-dolzhen-pomoch-migrantam-vo.html).

            One critical need is to ensure that immigrants are sent to where the jobs are. In some parts of Russia, especially in the Far East, there are vacancies galore; but this process must be managed carefully lest too many are sent at once even to those locations. Otherwise, as happened recently in Magadan, there can be a backlash, Brod continues.

            His expression of concern about such dangers likely reflects a more widely-shared worry among officials and those who deal with immigrants and the Russians they live among. Xenophobia is growing, polls show (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/04/xenophobic-attitudes-in-russia-again-on.html). And consequently, an explosion is possible.