Activists from the youth wing of United Russia held demonstrations against immigrant workers Monday, demanding that they return home and blaming them for the country's recent economic woes.

Wearing white and red baseball caps, about 30 Young Guard activists gathered in the rain outside the Moscow office of the Federal Migration Service. The group held similar protests across the country. "Every second [migrant] should go home," shouted the activists, most of whom were younger than 20.

One of Young Guard's leaders, Andrei Tatarinov, said in a statement on the group's web site that businesses should only be allowed to employ foreigners when Russians had already declined to take the job.

The protest was the second anti-migrant demonstration in the last six weeks by Young Guard.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is chairman of United Russia, said last week that quotas for foreign workers should be halved.

(Reuters, MT)