Liberal Democratic Party wants to ban entry to Russia for foreign women in late pregnancy

The LDPR faction in the State Duma has begun preparing bills to restrict the entry of foreign women into Russia in late pregnancy, follows from a letter from Yaroslav Nilov, Chairman of the Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs, to Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko (Vedomosti has a copy). The initiative is connected with “a significant increase in the number of crimes involving foreign citizens who arrived on the territory of the Russian Federation to carry out labor activities, as well as an increasing number of complaints about interethnic conflicts.”

The party plans to restrict the entry and stay of “a certain category of females in late pregnancy if they do not have Russian citizenship.” At the same time, restrictions should not apply to spouses and close relatives of Russians, the letter says. “The measures being developed are aimed primarily at preventing long-term illegal stays of foreign families with children in Russia and at preventing unnecessary burden on the domestic healthcare, education and social security systems,” writes Nilov Murashko.

In the course of the preparatory work on the bill, the deputy asks the Ministry of Health to provide data on the number of women without Russian citizenship who are registered with Russian medical institutions to monitor pregnancy, as well as information on children born to this category of women in the period from 2021 to 2023.

“Often the birth of a child in Russia is used to consolidate in our country on a permanent basis and receive various social privileges and benefits that the Russian society pays for,” the LDPR press service told Vedomosti about the essence of the bills being developed.

The draft law will provide for a set of measures to tighten migration legislation in general, Nilov told Vedomosti. The Liberal Democratic Party proposes to establish control over the movement of migrants across Russia, over their place of residence and employment, as well as sending money to their own countries, he said.

The bill will also provide for a ban on entry into the country for women with foreign citizenship in the later stages of pregnancy. At the same time, the ban will not apply to those whose husband or close relatives have Russian citizenship, as well as if there is a contract with a medical institution for pregnancy and childbirth, Nilov noted.

According to him, the “national question” is escalating in Russia due to the fact that emigrants overload the social infrastructure and subsequently enjoy benefits and support measures that are designed for Russian citizens. “Now they tell us that we are bringing a child to kindergarten, and there are half a group of migrants, half a class of migrants to school, half of the queue in hospitals are migrants,” the deputy said.

Nilov said that the LDPR intends to introduce a bill during the spring session of the State Duma.

Neither this nor any other initiative can be adopted before the main law in the field of migration legislation, which is now being prepared by the government, Vadim Kozhenov, an expert in the migration field, is sure. According to the List of instructions approved in 2020 by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on the implementation of the Concept of the State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation for 2019-2025, a bill regulating the conditions for the entry, exit and stay of foreigners in the country (Vedomosti) should be adopted wrote about him on May 16).

It was assumed that by the end of 2021 the entire legislative framework would be adopted, but interdepartmental approvals were delayed, the expert told Vedomosti. “No intermediate things, until the main law is adopted, no one will seriously consider. The Liberal Democratic Party can do great PR on this, nothing will happen to them for this, ”says Kozhenov.

The number of labor migrants entering Russia, in fact, remains at the level of 2016, the expert added. The indicators of 2016 were maintained, according to him, in 2017, 2018, 2019, and then the pandemic began. “Now everything is back to pre-pandemic levels,” he said.

Earlier in May, Vedomosti wrote citing FSB statistics that in the first quarter of 2023, 1.3 million foreigners entered Russia to work. And this is 1.6 times more than in the same period last year. The main influx of labor migrants came from Uzbekistan (630,859 people), Tajikistan (349,357), Kyrgyzstan (172,591), Armenia (47,337) and Kazakhstan (34,783).