Currently, Russia is a major receiving center, as well as a country of mass arrival and transit of migrants. For the last 15 years the growth of migration surpassed the boldest of forecasts.
The main task for Russia now is to organize a civilized migration.
Within the framework of this task I would like to highlight four priorities for Russia's migration policy:
• ensuring the best conditions for the promotion of the common law standards;
• protecting human rights;
• enforcing law and order and rule of law;
• ensuring maximum benefits from migration in economic, political, social and demographic areas.
On the one hand, Russia has been making efforts to become attractive for migrants, on the other – it has adopted measures to counter illegal migration.
We are happy to see those who arrived to our soil legally. We welcome and support them. But we will continue to take measures against illegal migration. In doing this, we will focus on removing conditions for illegal migration rather than acting against illegal migrants themselves.
Experts' estimates show that today there are about 10 million illegal migrants living in Russia. Most of them are citizens of the former USSR republics and other countries with small labour markets.
We are convinced that one cannot contain illegal