An Aircraft for Each Tajik!

Will deportation of illegal workers be paid for by Russian citizens?

We have done it! Yesterday, a group of illegal workers was deportedfrom Russia, who worked in building sites of Moscow Region. 115 people, Tajik citizens were put to Ilyushin-76 transport plane and sent to their motherland.

It should be remembered, that last month, the Moscow Region governor Boris Gromov promised that the authorities would start deporting all illegals who live and work in Moscow Region. The idea itself was right: it is a world-wide practice to send illegals to their motherland. Though, as for the Russia latest history, there was no precedent of mass deportation. And it is not a fact that measures of the kind will be a tradition.
 
The current group of Tajiks should have been deported a week ago. Though, something did not worked out, and as the result of it, the illegal workers remained for one week more. As a fact, not this is the most interesting thing, but the way how the authorities intend to keep on deporting foreign citizen.
 
It looks like representatives of certain institutions do not completely know it. There is an impression that for the functionaries it was much more important to carry out a demonstrative action. While finance and technical details of the deportation were not foreseen at all. The first group deportation cost for the regional government 1.5 million rubles (approximately $ 500,000). So, you could count up what the further deportations will cost in case they are being carried. There are dozens of thousands illegal workers in Moscow Region. Though, there is information, that in the future, the illegal workers deportation will be paid for by their employers.
 
According to Vladimir Sedykh, deputy chief of visa department of Main Internal Affairs Office of Moscow Region, the employing firm should pay 22,500 to 45,000 rubles (approximately $ 750 to 1500) as a fine for every gastarbeiter. For example, if in a building site there were 50 illegal workers, so the fine will make hundreds of thousands rubles. I wonder, in whose expense will the firm cover its losses? I dare to assume: at the expense of the people who will buy flats in the newly built house. However, it could be, that risks of the kind are initially included in the production cost. Though, even in this case, Russian citizens are not the gainers…

Moreover, who could guarantee that the deported illegal workers will not come back to Russia? And that they will not be caught again in a building site or in a market? Will then the deportation process be repeated again and again?

I would suppose, it will sooner bother Russian authorities. Fines paid by the employing firms also cannot save the situation: at least, Russian businessmen are smart people, and they will rapidly find some way. And Moscow and Moscow Region residents, as well as the residents of other cities and regions hardly will rush to work in building sites.
 
So, the illegals deportation hardly will have a mass character. Probably one or two demonstrative action, and everybody will forget the gastarbeiters. Till something else happens…

Vasily Bubnov
PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva