Dangerous Migrants? Linkages between Migration, Crime, and Terrorism in Russia

• In Event: The Intersection of Great Powers and Local Populism in Eurasia

Abstract

In many countries, migrants have been routinely blamed for rising rates of crime and terrorism. In Russia, a destination for millions of migrants from the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia, South Caucasus, and Ukraine, the linkages between migrants and socio-political instability have been reinforced by a sustained anti-immigration campaign of the state-sponsored media and inflammatory rhetoric of the politicians calling for the deportation of all migrants from the homeland. The majority of Russians support curbing migration and substantial minorities approve of more drastic measures, including the segregation of minorities based on their nationality. The restrictive measures against immigrants from Central Asia and the South Caucasus find strongest support.

Several analyses of the socio-political trends in Europe have pointed up the intersectionality of mass migration, crime, and terrorism. Russia’s domestic discourse, too, has linked Central Asian migrants to terrorists following the emergence of Islamic State (ISIS) that prompted the influx of foreign fighters to the war zones in Iraq and Syria. What are the intersections of migration, criminality, and terrorism in Russia? This study examines this question in a two-part research design consisting of a quantitative analysis of the relationship between migration and crime and terrorism in Russia’s 85 “provinces” (2008-2017) supplemented with a qualitative analysis of the ways in which the official rhetoric on the nexus of migration, crime, and terrorism have shaped the government's responses and contributed to the changing trends in both migration as well as crime and terrorism. The study challenges the presumed relationship between migration and terrorism and highlights the established and new factors, including the connectivity of migrants to their homelands and families provided by the cheaper technology and social media, that discourage them from criminal and terrorist activity. In addition, it highlights how the Kremlin’s discourse about anti-globalization, anti-liberalism, and anti-diversity has placed the Russian president in a predicament. On the one hand, Russia cannot be isolated from the global populist and nationalist trends partly fanned by Putin because they benefit him. On the other hand, these same trends are highly dangerous to his regime and security of the country in the medium- and long-term.

Author

• Mariya Y. Omelicheva, National War College