Russian human rights defender Valentina Chupik says new legislation on migration adopted by Russia's State Duma this week will dramatically restrict the rights of labor migrants.
Thousands of men and women from Central Asia regularly come to Russia as migrant workers and provide a financial lifeline to those back home.
Speaking to Current Time on July 25, Chupik said the new bills passed by the lower house will allow Russian police to fully control the everyday routine of labor migrants and bar them from leaving their homes, even to work or shop, if they decide to do so without a court decision.
"In addition to that, the so-called migration search regime would allow any police officer to detain labor migrants for up to 48 hours to check if they are being sought under the migration search regime," Chupik said.
The legislation comes amid rising antimigrant sentiment following the arrests of several Tajik citizens suspected of being involved in a terrorist attack in late March on an entertainment center near Moscow that left more than 140 people dead.
The bills allow the police to decide if migrant workers should be deported and allows for such deportation to be conducted within 48 hours.
Currently, decisions on the deportation of labor migrants are made by courts, and migrants ordered to be deported can stay in Russia for up to 90 days before the court decision is carried out.
Chupik told Current Time that while the accelerated process meant migrants set to be deported will not spend up to three months in prison-like deportation centers, she is concerned over one clause that says migrants can be deported if accused of "taking part in, or organizing, a mass gathering."
"A mass Islamic prayer...a line to a migration registration center, a crowd of migrants at a construction site, migrants' wedding party, or burial ceremony -- all can be defined as mass gathering, and anyone who attends such events can be deported," Chupik said.
Chupik said a clause saying migrants can be deported for refusing to follow the "legitimate orders of police officers" is also "worrisome," given that "in 19 years of human right activities in Russia, I have never seen a single legitimate request by police officers to labor migrants."
"The most horrible thing they made up is the so-called deportation for minor hooliganism," Chupik stressed, adding that currently 80 percent of illegally held labor migrants are charged with hooliganism to justify their detention.
The bills still have to be approved by the parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, before they are endorsed into law by President Vladimir Putin.