caveat emptor wrote:I had this conversation with you before. You can't just take in all the people from Tajikistan that come along, and even less giving them passports like candy. Results are three terrorist attacks with fatal outcomes, so far. I can tell that you don't follow situation in other countries of SU that much, but Tajikistan was a failed state even by stans standards.
It is matter of state and public security to scrutinize these people more, before entry, and "keep them on a short leash".
Thousands were fighting in Afghanistan and many more that didn't are radicalized.
Not to mention, that they are, by wide margin, of very low educational, skill and language levels and many will be involved in smuggling and petty crime. By giving them passports so easy, you're also subsiding their birth rates, as they get open access to welfare services.
I don't think I have to tell you, that experiment didn't work out great in France, for example.
Plus, immigrants from other stans are not far behind.
You have to use a principle of lowest common denominator, when making immigration laws, in order to be succeessful.
As for your subjective opinion, that's fine, but it's not what surveys of Russian population say. Especially, as of lately.
No I agree, of course Russia can't take responsibility for Tajikistan's entire population. And loopholes should be closed that allow anyone to take advantage of everything but the most essential free medical care before they're a citizen, or to become a citizen without fulfilling all the requirements and contributing to the economy for 5-10 years first, and with a spotless criminal record for the duration.
As for whether there are too many immigrants I dunno. Once again I live in St. Petersburg where we allegedly have all these illegal immigrants, but I haven't seen any harsh consequences of this. Yet I also accept that I can't speak for the whole of Russia, maybe immigrants cause a real ruckus elsewhere.
The thing is, we have to get them from somewhere. The continued growth of the economy depends on it, and Russia being in the position it is vis-a-vis the West cannot afford to experiment too much here. If we don't get migrants from ex-Soviet Central Asia, we will have to rely on them from Afghanistan and North Korea and Iran. Will that be better?
Yes migration has turned into a key issue in Russia, but at the same time there was some official who claimed just recently that it's being artificially amplified and that there is a risk of the country collapsing from all this xenophobia. I wouldn't be as alarmist as that, but definitely there is something artificial about it. 2-3 years ago you didn't hear about it at all. Nowadays in the comment section of any YouTube video you see nothing but Ukrobots hating on migrants in Russia with hundreds and thousands of upvotes each; in keeping with the promises of Ukrainian infowar services to promote divisions in Russian society. And I'm sure there are Russian troll farms doing the same thing as there is a large faction in the Russian establishment keen on scapegoating migrants for problems in society too and trying to win political points on this same issue - the head of Russia's Investigative Committee being a prime example but he and the people he represents are far from the only ones.
Nationalists work hand in hand with Russian police on migrant raids and also conduct their own confrontations which hint at state support for such activities. It's all rather ugly.
But at the same time another part of the state is sounding the alarm about the economy overheating and advocating for migration. While some parts of the elite are talking about how migrants are exploting Russian social services, Putin 6 months was saying that decent living and working conditions for migrants must be guaranteed.
It's like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and it's pretty confusing when it comes to understanding what's going on.
The same Duma bills that you mentioned that were proposed and then rejected is a prime example of this.
sepheronx wrote:Well, don't worry. It seems the authorities more or less all agree the immigration system is needing rework and a lot of these people are not gonna get in so easily anymore
Hell, maybe more deportations.
Automation is needed, not cheap labor of low IQ cousin marrying, religious zealots.
Putin switched tracks and talked about automation recently.
But that's a faulty argument.
First of all it hasn't helped Japan. In fact they're now liberalizing their migration policies themselves.
Secondly, automation doesn't actually change anything. Let's say you have a factory employing 100 people in a country which is breaking even on population. You then modernize it to be more automated, now it only employs 50 people. The other 50 people can go work in a similar automated factory; so now you have double the output for the same amount of workers. Fine.
But let's say you have a country with an expanding population. They also have a factory employing 100 people, it gets modernized, 50 people stay, 50 people go work in another factory, and during that time another 50 workers entered the workforce and they go to work in yet another automated factory. So they've tripled the output.
Countries with growing populations can pursue automation as much as countries with stagnant populations. In practice they won't to the same extent, as automation is an expensive upfront investment and they can rely on their cheaper workforce more instead. But if they wanted to they can. And their economies will still grow faster regardless of whether they do or don't, then the country with a stagnant population that's trying to automate everything.
For this reason Indonesia will overtake Russia in economic size despite the fact that the country is far below Russia in technology and automation - simply by virtue of its expanding population.
And in fact no special focus on automation is required anyway. It's something that all factories and business owners will do, when labour costs increase to a sufficient degree due to a shortage of said labour. They will either put up the money for automation in the hope that it can boost their output or cut their costs in the long-term, or they will go out of business.
Of course the West has understood all this, but in their own way, and are letting a flood of immigrants in. The main thing is to keep up their economic growth, and for the US to be able to compete with China as the economic top dog.
But they've also paid minimal mind to social cohesion and all the other drawbacks of unlimited migration and they're paying the price for that.
Russia has to be smarter. It can't ignore the need for immigration from Central Asia and from other parts of the world that don't share it's culture. But it can also encourage immigration from Europe and the wider West to counterbalance that. It can also encourage the re-emigration of Russians and Russian-speakers from the West into Russia. Both things it's doing, the former is mostly just PR as the practical results are small, while the later has found some success, but more needs to be done to ease procedures, paperwork and encourage people to immigrate; particularly from Germany, Israel, the Baltic States, but also Great Britain, France, the US where a lot of Russians can be found too.
At the same time Russians ultimately have to have more kids. The government has adopted a bunch of pro-natal policies but ultimately I don't think any of them are hitting at the core of the issue. Cities will always have minimal birthrates, but even in then you can help things along, by making 3-4 bedroom appartments and houses more widely available. Rural living and de-urbanization is key, but it's only recently that any attention has started to be paid to Russian small towns and villages at all. Throughout the whole 90s-2010s it was just about moving to the big cities for everyone, men and women, and that was it, no time or money for kids, and the villages themselves just rotted.
Lastly, when it comes to the immigrants from Central Asia, Russia can't afford to let nationalism and xenophobia towards them to become a norm. It will result in exactly the ghettos that people are saying they want to avoid. Mixing should be encouraged, which requires a curb on racism and nationalism. More emphasis should be made on Russian civic identity and a binding ideology, like the one the war situation is producing.
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