Sixty-six percent of Russians support tighter migration controls, a survey by independent pollster the Levada Center revealed Tuesday.
Only 12 percent of respondents said that immigrants enriched Russian society, with over half (51 percent) arguing that migrants did not contribute to country's economic development, the Interfax news agency reported.
Sixty-four percent blamed migrants for increasing levels of crime, while 62 percent said that their presence took jobs from Russian nationals.
Another 39 percent said that migrants
were “destroying Russian culture,” Interfax reported.
Some respondents also supported migrant
quotas based on nationality, with 29 percent claiming that the number
of foreign workers from Central Asia needed to be reduced.
Almost one in four (24 percent) said that the number
of Chinese migrants should be curbed, while nineteen percent wished
to target Vietnamese nationals.
Thirteen percent said that the number of Ukrainian migrants also needed to be restricted, despite the ongoing civil war.
One in three respondents also wished to restrict migration within Russia based on ethnicity, specifically targeting those from the country's Caucasus region. Just two percent of those surveyed said that they “respected” citizens from that region.
Some 1,600 people in 48 Russian regions took part in the
survey
