A migration amnesty law is being developed that could allow as many as five million illegal immigrants to become Russian citizens. A migration amnesty law is being developed that could allow as many as five million illegal immigrants to become Russian citizens. The Migration of the 21st Century foundation, which seeks to assist the government...

Over the past decade, the Russian government has been making a sustained effort to put immigration under control. But this effort has been effectively undermined by the open-border regime Russia maintains with most of other former Soviet republics. Over the past decade, the Russian government has been making a sustained effort...

... not scary. And yet... Arrive in Moscow with young children in tow, and the situation is completely different. Strangers will go out of their way to offer them a seat on the crowded metro or to show your family the way to the correct office to get your immigration forms stamped. Elderly museum attendants will — once they have overcome their innate suspicion of children not clad in snow pants in September — smile benignly and ferret around for cards giving you a translation of the legends...

Britain has joined the United States in taking steps to bar entry to Russian officials implicated in the 2009 jail death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced strengthened immigration rules in its annual human rights report this week that would make it difficult for Russians accused of human rights violations in the Magnitsky case to enter Britain. The U.S. State Department last year blacklisted 60 Russian officials implicated...

.... Embassy has moved to defuse the latest adoption scandal between the United States and Russia after the death of a Russian orphan in Nebraska last week prompted a senior official to renew calls for fewer foreign adoptions. Nine-year-old Anton Fomin immigrated to the United States with his birth parents, not through intercountry adoption, the embassy said in a statement. A spokeswoman for children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov confirmed that Fomin was given up for adoption after arriving in the United...

... investigation into prison officials, Interfax reported. Investigators had accused two jail doctors of neglect in the case, but charges were later dropped against one because the statute of limitations ran out. Britain announced this week that it has adopted immigration rules that could also ban Magnitsky suspects. The new rules bar entry to foreign officials accused of human rights violations in their home countries. Last summer, the U.S. State Department said it had blacklisted 60 Russian officials implicated...

... nationalism and xenophobia. Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry's ombudsman for human rights, specifically accused Latvia and Estonia of harassing Russian-speaking minorities, Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland of discriminating against immigrants and the United States of creating secret prisons where suspected terrorists were allegedly tortured. He said Europe and Russia had to have "equal rights" in their dialogue on human rights, a point repeated by many on the panel. "We...

... traditional left-wing parties but unexpectedly from the Communists, Trotskyists and the National Front led by Marine Le Pen. Political analysts have interpreted the rapid rise in her popularity as a sign of the country's growing xenophobia and anti-immigration mood. The "moderate" right tried to outdo the racist rhetoric of the nationalists, while the left pursued a hysterical campaign in defense of multiculturalism. Neither approach worked. Le Pen focused her criticisms on the neoliberal...

... exposing the many absurdities and peculiarities that are key to the reality to which the country is so accustomed. From the boyars' WAGS draped in furs and oversized sunglasses to the police officers surreptitiously accepting backhanders from illegal immigrants, the action on the stage of the Mariinsky represented a microcosm of Russian life. It would be fair to call the production politically charged, although the director explores the subject in multiple dimensions. The characters that we see on...

... Emigration used to be hard. When my great-grandparents sailed to Africa, they probably knew it was for life. A bad choice was hard to rectify. In Argentina 20 years ago, just after South America's "lost decade," I encountered a nation of nostalgic immigrants who seemed to feel they'd got on the wrong boat. They should have gone to the United States instead. Sometimes the wrong choice was personal rather than political. A friend of my grandmother's met a Czech refugee in wartime London. Postwar...

... trade with Russia. Such a change would be doubly beneficial: It would both enhance trade and hold to account people responsible for egregious human rights abuses. Meanwhile, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced earlier this week strengthened immigration rules that would make it difficult for Russians accused of human rights violations in the Magnitsky case to enter Britain, a favorite destination for wealthy Russians. In Ottawa, the Canadian parliament has called for similar measures, including...

.... On April 11, the city passed Law No. 12, which amends laws from 1995 and 2008 to allow city-funded preschool and kindergarten facilities to be built in "nature areas." There has been a deficit of student slots in kindergartens because of immigration and an increased birthrate in the city. The perceived lack of preschool space "definitely exists," said Sergei Smirnov, director of the Institute of Social Policy and Socio-Economic Programs at the Higher School of Economics. In...