Migrants from Central Asia face violence and hostility when they seek jobs in Russia

The migrant workers from Uzbekistan entered a bank in Moscow, but when he arrived at the Terror she refused to serve him and did not say why.

For him and others in the poor Central Asian country seeking a better life in Russia, such hostility is woven into everyday life. Sometimes it explodes into total violence.

“Most of the time you notice when you go to a hospital, a clinic or a bureaucratic agency. You’re lined up and everyone shoots your dirty looks,” he spoke to the man he spoke to on condition of anonymity.

This xenophobia clashes with economic realities when Russia is labour shortage, primarily due to wars in Ukraine. According to the central bank, in the first quarter of 2025, more than 20% of Russian companies said they were being hampered by a labor shortage.

But rather than welcoming workers, Russian officials are promoting anti-immigrant sentiment and increasing restrictions on immigration. The government says 6.1 million cases, but it’s probably high. The government tracks their moves, closes their employment, and hinders the children’s rights to education.

Resistance against immigration

The ongoing crackdown comes as the trial began this month for the four Tajik citizens accused of shooting and arson attacks. Moscow Concert Hall In March 2024, 149 people died. The four were arrested within hours of the attack, Appeared in court With signs of being beaten badly. The Islamic State group argued for responsibility, but Russia tried to blame the Ukraine’s chief on bloodshed.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric has been growing in Russia since the early 2020s. But the massacre, in particular, has launched a wave of “severe violence” against immigrants, said Valentina Chupic, a lawyer who has worked with the immigrant community for more than two decades. Eight days after the murder, she said she received 700 reports of injuries to immigrants, including “faces that hit the police station door.”

Congressional Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin captured the public mood after the genocide, saying “immigration management is extremely important” to ensure that foreigners who commit “illegal acts” could be deported without court orders.

The violence sparked concerns from human rights groups.

“Central Asian immigrants seeking jobs in Russia due to the dire economic situation in their country of origin today are facing ethnic profiling by Russian police, arbitrary arrests and other harassment,” Human Rights Watch said in a report on the Attack Day.

“The vicious genocide cannot justify Russia’s massive violation of rights against Central Asian immigrants,” says its author Syinat Sultanalieva.

Raids, roundups, restrictions

Some violence has settled down, but it has not disappeared. In April, police attacked a bathhouse run by Moscow, Kyrgyzstan, with video showing a masked man craving a semi-naked bather across the floor and deliberately stepping in before intentionally covering the lens of a security camera.

Police also reportedly rounded up migrants in raids at warehouses, construction sites and mosques, forcing them to join the army to fight in Ukraine. Some are threatened to withhold residency documents, while others are independent citizens who have recently failed to register for military service. In such cases, service in the military is Only substitutes for prisons Or deportation. For others, a quick truck to Russian citizenship is provided as an incentive for enlistment.

Speaking in St. Petersburg in May, Alexander Bastrickin, head of the Russian Board of Inquiry, said that “20,000 young Russian citizens who for some reason do not like to live in Tajikistan (and) Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan” are serving in Ukraine.

Immigrants who avoid violence remain subject to new anti-immigration laws. Much of this is specifically aimed at immigrants from Central Asia.

In 2024, 13 regions in Russia banned immigration from certain jobs, including hospitality, catering, finance, and even taxi drivers. The pilot program, which begins in the Moscow region in September, requires immigrants entering Russia without using a visa to track it through the app. Those who fail to comply will be added to the police watch list, blocking access to services such as banking and imposing the possibility of cut-offs of mobile phones and internet connections.

National laws have banned immigrant children from attending school unless they can prove they can speak Russian. Less than six weeks after the law came into effect, authorities told local media that only 19% of children who applied for a language test could take it, and the most common reason for rejection was incomplete or inaccurate documents.

Another man from Uzbekistan, who has worked in Russia for almost 20 years and lives in St. Petersburg, said he had to wait in line for more than seven hours to obtain the necessary residence documents. The man who spoke with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation said that he hopes to remain in Russia, but that the migrant climate has deteriorated.

“It’s difficult to get the paperwork,” he said. “We don’t have time.”

Repressive laws can force immigrants to resort to payments for bribery. Lawyer Chupik believes that the Russian system will result in “an inevitable violation.”

“This is exactly what this massive regulation is trying to do, not all immigrants are here legally, they’re illegal for everyone,” she said. “That way they can extract the bribes from anyone at any time and deport those who resist.”

Encourage anti-immigrant sentiment

Anti-immigrant sentiment is unlikely to diminish anytime soon, as it is encouraged by authorities like Bastorikin, a committee of inquiry who said that immigrants “physically occupy our territory not only with ideology but with certain buildings.”

Ultranationalist MP Leonid Suratosky said migrant workers “behaved proactively, causing conflict and potentially dangerous situations.”

Caress Schenk, an associate professor of political science at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, said immigration is an easy scapegoat for many social illnesses, not just for Russia, but for many social illnesses.

“Closing borders, carrying out immigrant raids and tightening policies are all tools that are easy goats for politicians around the world,” she said. “As we see, it’s a cycle that’s sensitive to geopolitical pressures, but there are election campaigns and domestic political competition.”

According to Moscow-based Uzbek immigrants ignored by bank teller, the surge in “anti-immigrant propaganda” has been spurred by previous rhetoric in recent years.

“If everyone is paying attention to television, radio, the internet is simply being told that immigrants are “bad, bad, bad.”

This anti-immigrant rhetoric has become part of the nationalist narratives from President Vladimir Putin and others that were used to justify Ukraine’s 2022 invasion. Russia is under constant threat.

“Russia has begun to bring together all of the “external enemies” that have been created over the years, including immigrants, Ukrainians, Westerners,” says Shakasimov, a Tajik journalist who focuses on immigration, identity and social issues. “It’s all this part of this only Russian story, this castle under siege, and Putin is the only person who keeps the eye of ordinary Russians.”

Uzbek immigrants in Moscow said Russia had created conditions “probably to help people and help migrants.”

“But the rules don’t work,” he added. ” A special barrier was created that immigrants could not pass by themselves. ”