‘Tools of pressure, isolation, and repression’ Russia’s new migrant registry strips 'illegal’ immigrants of rights — and it’s easy to land on it by mistake

In early February 2025, Russia launched a nationwide registry of “controlled individuals,” a system used to track foreign nationals deemed to be living in the country without legal status. Being added to the list comes with sweeping restrictions: individuals can lose access to their bank accounts, be barred from leaving their region, driving a car, registering a business, or even getting married — and many risk losing their jobs. But inclusion in the registry isn’t always the result of a legal violation; some people have ended up on the list due to bureaucratic errors. Getting removed can be an uphill battle — and there’s no guarantee of success. BBC News Russian investigated how the system works and what happens to those who find themselves trapped inside it. Meduza shares a summary of their reporting.

Twenty-five-year-old Arsen (name changed) is originally from Kazakhstan but has been living in Russia for the past five years. He says he learned he’d been added to the registry after receiving a notification from his bank while trying to transfer money to a friend. “The Russian Interior Ministry has added you to the list of controlled foreign citizens,” the message read. “You are prohibited from all banking operations except: incoming transfers; mandatory payments to the Russian state; and cash withdrawals of no more than 30,000 rubles [$370] per month.”

When Arsen called the bank, he was told to contact the Interior Ministry. With rent due and groceries to buy, he made his way to the Sakharovo Multifunctional Migration Center on the outskirts of Moscow. There, he spent three hours standing in line in the snow. “There were armed riot police everywhere, the area was cordoned off. They were yelling at everyone, using profanity — ‘Hey, you!’ That’s how they talked. It felt like I’d been thrown into some ISIS-style camp. Steel fences everywhere. One woman leaned on a railing, and a cop smacked it with his baton to make her back off. They treated us like animals,” Arsen recalled.

By evening, Arsen was issued a number on a piece of paper. He was told to return the next day for fingerprinting and medical tests. The conditions inside the center, he says, were grim: filthy exam rooms and corridors, dirty toilets with broken plumbing where you had to give a urine sample, and bloody cotton swabs strewn on the floor. A few days after completing the procedures, Arsen’s name was removed from the registry. He was given no explanation and received no apology, BBC News Russian reported.

Olesya (name changed), another foreign national, ended up on the registry because of a typo in her last name, according to Valentina Chupik, the founder of a migrant rights advocacy center. On Olesya’s migration card — a form required for all foreigners entering Russia — the letter “o” had been written in a way that resembled an “a.” Chupik said officials threatened the woman with deportation, and only after repeated calls and complaints did they retrieve her file and recognize the error. “Eventually, they apologized and admitted she’d been added by mistake,” Chupik said. “They told her to wait while they fixed it.” So far, however, the issue still hasn’t been resolved — and Olesya now risks losing her job, since her employer faces a million-ruble fine (over $12,000) for hiring someone flagged as an “illegal migrant.”

Not all cases involve alleged violations of immigration law. One fourth-year university student, Mirat, a native of Turkmenistan, was added to the registry over an unpaid transit fare. He had a valid student pass but was fined in February for riding without payment. While he was appealing the charge in federal court, the Moscow transit authority filed the same case in a lower court — which ruled against him before his appeal was heard. As a result, Mirat was found to have committed two misdemeanor offenses: fare evasion and failure to pay the fine. He was placed on the registry and is now facing expulsion from his university.

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Russia’s “registry of controlled persons” was created under legislation introduced in the State Duma in late June 2024. It passed all three readings in just six weeks. The total number of people currently listed is unclear, but by early March 2025 — one month after the system officially launched — it already included 685,000 foreign nationals. According to Interior Ministry statistics from September 2024, Russia had just under 6.2 million migrants at the time. That means roughly one in nine had been labeled a “controlled individual” — effectively deemed an illegal resident.

Chupik said that in the first two days after the registry went live, more than 30 people contacted her claiming they had been added in error. The Interior Ministry did not respond to BBC News Russian’s request for comment.

An immigration lawyer told BBC News Russian that officially, the registry is “a way to keep tabs on someone when the authorities aren’t able to deport them.” “Maybe the documents are missing, or there’s no funding or logistics to carry it out, or they can’t locate the person, or the case is still in court,” he said. In practice, however, the lawyer described the registries as “tools of pressure, isolation, and repression,” likening inclusion on the list to a public mark of shame that “also entails serious legal consequences.”