Temporary Asylum: Problems of Public Administration, Statistics and Administrative Legal Regulation

Petrovskaya Miroslava Ivanovna Senior Lecturer, Department of Legal Science, North-West Institute of Management of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 199178, Russia, g. Saint Petersburg, liniya 15-Ya vasil'evskogo ostrova, 32, kv. 69 maria-petrovskaya@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The status of temporary asylum in Russia is currently the most sought-after status among forced migrants in Russia. Forced migration in Russia is associated primarily with refugee and temporary asylum statuses ^{[1, p. 61]}. The migration system of Russia in the sphere of forced migration is built around the granting of refugee status, temporary asylum and political asylum ^{[2, pp. 64-68]}. Political asylum is mainly an exclusive status, is rarely granted and cannot be considered on a par with the refugee and temporary asylum statuses, since it has primarily political significance in contrast to the refugee and temporary asylum statuses, which are based not so much on the ideas of political expediency as on the principle of humanism and democracy ^{[3, p. 167-171]}.

It should be noted that the refugee status, according to statistics, is becoming less and less in demand every year. At the same time, the status of temporary asylum is also becoming less in demand[*].

In 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia attempted to reform the institution of temporary asylum and refugee by optimizing administrative procedures and introducing a new status – temporary protection – to provide as a basic status in the event of an emergency mass arrival of forced migrants. The reform was not brought to completion, and the bill remains to this day at the stage of public discussion on the relevant portal[†]. Thus, there is currently no status in Russian law that allows to optimize and facilitate the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the conditions of emergency mass arrival of forced migrants, which significantly complicates the state management of forced migration in the current geopolitical realities ^{[4, pp. 44-53]}.

Also, the prognostic and statistical function is not effectively implemented within the framework of the state management of forced migration in Russia ^{[5, pp. 69-72]}. This is expressed both in the general unpreparedness of the state management system of forced migration to work in emergency regimes, and in significant administrative barriers that create difficulties for both the state and forced migrants who objectively need protection ^{[6, p. 17-20]}.

These problems require thorough consideration and the development of new administrative, legal and managerial approaches to their solution.

The purpose of this article is to develop proposals for reforming the administrative and legal regulation of the institution of temporary asylum in the Russian Federation in the system of state management of forced migration in Russia.

The status of temporary asylum is the most popular of all statuses among forced migrants. The procedure for obtaining temporary asylum status is much simpler than the procedure for obtaining refugee status, since there are no a number of circumstances to be confirmed by a person in need of measures of domestic protection from persecution ^{[7, pp. 304-312]}.

Thus, according to the norms of the Federal Law “On Refugees” of 19.02.1993 N 4528-1[‡], in order to be recognized as a refugee, it is necessary to meet the criteria specified in article 1 (subparagraph 1 of paragraph 1). To do this, during the two-stage procedure for considering an application for refugee recognition, which includes a preliminary examination of the application and consideration of the application on the merits, it is necessary to prove and confirm the existence of persecution or the threat of persecution for political, ideological and other beliefs or in connection with the civil and political position of the person applying for refugee status.

At the same time, at each stage within the framework of consideration of the application for recognition as a refugee, it is possible to refuse to consider the application for both formal and factual reasons.

According to article 7 of the above-mentioned federal law, the term for consideration of the petition is from 2 to 6 months, which significantly delays the procedure for consideration of petitions, and the lack of guarantees of a positive outcome makes this status less and less popular in Russia according to statistics.

Given that the level of socio-economic guarantees of persons who have received refugee status and persons who have received temporary asylum status differs slightly, guarantees of non-expulsion of a foreign citizen or a stateless person to a State from whose territory the person was forced to flee due to the threat of persecution are of the greatest importance in practice. the main humanitarian goal of the state, taking into account not only the likelihood of a high threat to the life and health of a citizen in the event of deportation, but also potentially possible violations of the rights and legitimate interests of forced migrants by officials for selfish purposes at any stage of consideration of an application for refugee status ^{[8, pp. 61-67]}.

Article 13 of the above-mentioned federal law provides for the possibility of deportation of a person who has been refused refugee status and has not used the appeal procedure, while not voluntarily leaving the territory of Russia.

If the decision appeal procedure has taken place, but a positive result has not been received on the complaint, then the person, together with family members, is obliged to voluntarily leave the territory of Russia within 3 days (Article 10 of the said federal law). Otherwise, according to article 13, a decision is made to deport a foreign citizen or a stateless person as having no grounds for legal stay in Russia.

In order to obtain temporary asylum under article 12, a submitted application is sufficient, which, although it may not contain grounds for recognition as a refugee, but at the same time a person cannot be deported for humanitarian reasons. In fact, this is a "lite" or "lite" version of refugee status. The procedure for granting temporary asylum status is determined by the Russian Government.

In general, according to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of April 9, 2001 No. 274 as amended on July 19, 2023, the deadline for making a decision on an application for temporary asylum is 3 months[§].

In case of an emergency mass arrival of forced migrants, there is also a certain order. Thus, according to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of July 22, 2014 No. 690 as amended on March 29, 2023[**], the decision to grant temporary asylum status is carried out within 3 working days (paragraph 5), however, such a period is set only for emergency mass arrival of forced migrants to the territory of the Russian Federation in respect of citizens of Ukraine and stateless persons permanently residing on the territory of Ukraine.

Experts regularly note procedural and bureaucratic problems in the field of granting refugee status, the need for systemic reform in the field of state management of forced migration ^{[2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10]}.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs, realizing the need for a qualitative update of legal regulation in 2021, took the initiative to adopt a federal law on asylum in Russia, but the initiative is still under consideration [††].

 One of the positive innovations could be the institution of temporary protection, which would make it possible to differentiate the status of temporary asylum, which is now actually used not only as an alternative to the status of temporary asylum, but also as a “patch” that closes legislative gaps for the legalization of forced migrants from Ukraine on the territory of Russia.  

There are also significant problems in statistical activity, demonstrating the problems of public administration in the field of forced migration in Russia.

So, since 2016, the number of refugees (persons who have received refugee status) has been steadily decreasing. In 2016, there were 770 persons who received refugee status, in 2017, respectively, 598 persons who received refugee status, in 2018, 592 people received refugee status, in 2019, 572 people already, in 2020, 487 people acquired refugee status, in 2021, respectively, 455 people, and in 2022 there was an anti–record has been set - a total of 331 people have received refugee status[‡‡]. The data on the Rosstat website is relevant for 2022.

Given the objective growth of geopolitical tension, this situation looks extremely strange. The volume of world forced migration both on a global scale and on the scale of the Russian Federation has objectively increased. Thus, according to the UNHCR, as of 31.12.2022, the number of refugees who moved to the Russian Federation amounted to 2,852,395 people. The number of refugees who received the status of asylum or temporary protection in Russia on the specified date was 1,275,315 people [§§].

At the same time, according to Rosstat, 331 people received refugee status in 2022, that is, this is a record low number of forced migrants who received refugee status for the observed period from 2016 to 2022.

According to another status – temporary asylum – the dynamic situation is not fundamentally different from the dynamic situation with the status of refugee status. In 2022, there was also a record low number of people who were granted temporary asylum status for the period from 2016 to 2022.

Recall that in 2016, an absolute record was recorded since 2007 in the number of temporary asylum statuses granted – 313,707 people received temporary asylum status.

In 2017, the number of persons granted temporary asylum status was reduced to 228,392 (that is, the number of persons granted temporary asylum decreased by 85,315 people or approximately 27 percent compared to 2016). 

In 2018, the number of persons granted temporary asylum status is 125,442 people (the number of persons granted temporary asylum decreased by 102,950 people or approximately 45 percent compared to 2017, decreased by 188,265 or approximately 60 percent compared to 2016). 

In 2019, the number of persons granted temporary asylum status is already 76,825 (that is, the number of persons granted temporary asylum decreased by 48,617 people or approximately 39 percent compared to 2018, decreased by 236,882 or approximately 75 percent compared to 2016).

In 2020, the number of people who received temporary asylum is 41,946 people (that is, the number of people who received temporary asylum decreased by 34,879 people or approximately 45 percent compared to 2019, decreased by 271,761 or approximately 87 percent compared to 2016).

In 2021 – 19817 (that is, the number of people who received temporary asylum decreased by 22,129 people or approximately 53 percent compared to 2020, decreased by 293,890 people or approximately 94 percent compared to 2016).

In 2022, an absolute anti–record was recorded since 2016 in terms of the number of temporary asylum statuses granted - 10581 people (that is, the number of people who received temporary asylum decreased by 9236 people or approximately 47 percent compared to 2020, compared to 2016 it decreased by 303,126 people or approximately 97 percent).

In fact, a smaller number of temporary asylum statuses were granted only from 2007 to 2014 (2007 – 1016, 2008 -1180, 2009 – 1613, 2010 – 3425, 2011 – 3726, 2012 – 3036, 2013- 2415, 2014- 2822)[***].

In 2015, there was a sharp jump of almost 10 times, and the number of persons who were granted temporary asylum status amounted to 237,780 people, 234,360 of whom were forced migrants from Ukraine, while forced migrants who were granted temporary asylum status amounted to 3,420 people.

In 2016, the number of forced migrants increased to 313,707 people, of which 311,134 were forced migrants from Ukraine, and only 2,000 were forced migrants from other states who were granted temporary asylum status.

In 2013-2014, persons from the territory of Ukraine who were granted temporary asylum status were not included in the statistical data. Thus, the number of forced migrants who have been granted temporary asylum status, excluding forced migrants from Ukraine, would amount to 3,420 people, which is comparable to data from previous years.

In the next 7 years (from 2015 to 2022), the main part of the forced migrants who were granted temporary asylum were forced migrants from Ukraine. It should be noted that their number has been decreasing every year throughout this period.

These data correlate with the indicators of the number of refugee statuses granted in 2022. However, it is fundamentally unclear how these data correlate with objectively increased data on forced migration in the world.

Even if we assume that the data of international organizations in the current geopolitical situation may be biased for political reasons, the official data in Russian sources also indicate an unprecedented number of refugees, and the quantitative indicators of refugees in Russian sources significantly exceed the data of international organizations. Thus, according to TASS statistics, as of January 30, 2023, 5.2 million refugees have arrived on the territory of Russia since February 2022, 733 thousand of them children [+++].

The situation is also not clarified in the light of statistical data on the acquisition of Russian citizenship. In 2021, 667,939 people received Russian citizenship, and in 2022 only 637,923 people according to official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia[‡‡‡]. Thus, the number of people who received Russian citizenship in 2022 turned out to be even less than in 2021 by 30,016 people.

Considering the above statistics and their percentages, we note that every year, since 2017, the number of granted temporary asylum statuses has steadily decreased in accordance with the decrease in the number of forced migrants from Ukraine, who annually (from 2016 to 2022) make up the absolute majority in relation to other categories of forced migrants in Russia.

Considering all of the above, we can conclude that 2022, according to statistics, is paradoxically calm in geopolitical terms and in terms of political tension, demonstrates a steady trend towards a decrease in the number of forced migrants, including from Ukraine. And even the official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the number of acquired citizenship demonstrate a trend towards stabilization of the situation (in 2021, 667,939 people, in 2022 only 637,923 people)[§§§].

Meanwhile, the official sources mentioned above contain irrefutable information about an unprecedented increase in the number of forced migrants in Russia and around the world after February 2022. Based on the available data, it can be assumed that the accession of new territories to Russia caused the automatic granting of citizenship to all citizens of these territories, while this is not reflected in the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Statistical data on the registration of passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation (in 2022 - 11,997,010 and in 2021 - 10,268,647) also do not give a clear answer to this question. The difference between the two years is 1,728,363 people. At the same time, 6,739,067 internal passports were issued in 2021 and 7,144,044 in 2022. The difference in the number of issued internal passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation between 2021 and 2022 is 404,977, which is most correlated with the natural growth of the population. Foreign passports were issued, respectively, 3,529,580 in 2021 and 4,852,966 in 2022. The difference in the number of issued foreign passports between 2021 and 2022 is 1,323,386.

It should be noted that the number of forced migrants from the territories of Ukraine and Donbass in 2022 amounted to about 4.7 million people [****].

There is no correlation between the number of issued foreign passports and the number of forced migrants from Ukraine, and the increase in the number of issued internal passports of a citizen of the Russian Federation between 2021 and 2022 is only 404,977, which does not allow us to answer the question of how the state administration of forced migrants in Russia is carried out urgently, since statistical data do not allow us to assess the situation objectively, but also in general, they show a completely different picture that does not correspond to reality.

Based on the results of the study , the following conclusions can be drawn:

1) The Russian Federation is currently in a state of “testing the strength” of the quality of public administration in the field of forced migration. When the old schemes for granting temporary asylum status stop working, the Government introduces new schemes, reducing the usual period for consideration of applications from 3 months to 3 days (see Government Resolution No. 274 of April 9, 2001, as amended on July 19, 2023 and Government Resolution No. 690 of July 22, 2014, as amended on July 29 March 2023).

Of course, the reduction in the time for consideration of applications is probably determined by the high and undeniable danger facing forced migrants from Ukraine.

2) At the same time, based on the analysis of the statistics of granting refugee status since 2016, there have been no positive fluctuations in the direction of increasing the number of refugee statuses granted to forced migrants from Ukraine. Instead, there is a statistical decrease in the number of granted statuses, even despite the objectively increased geopolitical tensions in 2022.

Paragraph 5 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of the Government of the Russian Federation of July 22, 2014 No. 690 regarding the term of consideration of the petition has not changed since 2014 (3 working days from the date of filing the application). Such a shortened procedure (3 working days instead of 3 months) should certainly have had a positive impact on the statistics of the number of temporary asylum statuses granted. At the same time, in 2013-2014, persons from the territory of Ukraine who were granted the status of temporary asylum are absent from the statistical data.

In the next 7 years (from 2015 to 2022), the main part of the forced migrants who were granted temporary asylum were forced migrants from Ukraine. At the same time, their number has been decreasing every year throughout this period, with the exception of 2016, when the maximum number of temporary asylum statuses granted was observed.

Recall that in 2021, the number of forced migrants from Ukraine who were granted temporary asylum status amounted to 18,345 people, which is 9478 more than in 2022. Thus, the number of forced migrants from Ukraine who were granted temporary asylum status in 2022 decreased by 51 percent compared to 2021.

This trend is paradoxical in the context of objectively increased geopolitical tensions and an increase in the number of forced migrants in Russia. The statistics analyzed by the author on the number of acquired citizenship in 2021 and 2022, as well as the number of issued internal passports, do not clarify the situation either.

According to the author, these data do not correlate at all with TASS statistics, according to which, as of January 30, 2023, 5.2 million refugees have arrived on the territory of Russia since February 2022, 733 thousand of them children [+++++].

These circumstances demonstrate systemic problems of statistical accounting of forced migrants in emergency reception conditions, or defects and errors in statistical data and calculations.

According to the author, the solution to the current situation in the field of statistics may be the granting of statistical powers to a single state body that will synchronize all statistical data. Such a body can be the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which has all the information in the field of forced migration.

3) The Institute of temporary asylum and the refugee institute need systemic reform, since according to statistics they are becoming less popular among forced migrants, which may indicate their lack of social relevance. Also, there is no special status in Russian legislation for forced migrants who arrived on the territory of Russia in an emergency mass order.

The status of temporary asylum is currently used as such a status, while for some categories of foreign citizens and stateless persons, the period for consideration of an application for temporary asylum is 3 working days, for others 3 months, which creates legal uncertainty, increases the burden on the responsible units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and reduces the overall quality of public administration in the field of forced migration due to the lack of high-quality administrative optimization of reduced application processing procedures.

Thus, the introduction of a new legal status – temporary protection – taking into account the optimized administrative procedure and the formation of new management schemes can have a positive impact on the quality of public administration in the field of forced migration.

[*] Migration statistics data. Rosstat. / https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/tab_migr4.htm (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[†] Draft Federal Law "On Granting Asylum in the Territory of the Russian Federation"/ https://regulation.gov.ru/projects#npa=124403 (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[‡] Federal Law of 19.02.1993 N 4528-1 (ed. of 13.06.2023) "On refugees" // SPS "Consultant plus"

[§] Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of April 9, 2001 No. 274 as amended. dated July 19, 2023 "On granting temporary asylum in the territory of the Russian Federation" // SPS "Consultant plus".

[**] Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of July 22, 2014 No. 690 as amended on March 29, 2023 "On granting temporary asylum on the Territory of the Russian Federation to citizens of Ukraine and stateless persons permanently residing on the Territory of Ukraine who arrived in an emergency mass order on the territory of the Russian Federation in search of asylum" (together with "Temporary rules for granting temporary asylum on the territory of the Russian Federation to citizens of Ukraine and stateless persons who have permanently resided on the territory of Ukraine, who arrived in an emergency mass order on the territory of the Russian Federation in search of asylum")" // SPS "Consultant plus".

[††] Draft Federal Law "On Granting Asylum in the Territory of the Russian Federation"/ https://regulation.gov.ru/projects#npa=124403 (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[‡‡] Migration statistics data. Rosstat. / https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/tab_migr4.htm (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[§§] Data on the number of refugees from Ukraine by UNHCR https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[***] Migration statistics data. Rosstat. / https://rosstat.gov.ru/storage/mediabank/tab_migr4.htm (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[†††] Since February 2022, more than 5.2 million refugees have arrived in Russia from the territory of Ukraine URL: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/16914809 ?ysclid=lo2rr1c52b835541156 (accessed: 10/30/2023)

[‡‡‡] Statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on the number of issued statuses of a citizen of the Russian Federation in 2021 and 2022 URL:   https://ìâä.ðô/dejatelnost/statistics/migracionnaya/item/34428645 /?ysclid=lo2s4daho5566131154 (accessed: 10/30/2023)

[§§§] Statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on the number of issued statuses of a citizen of the Russian Federation in 2021 and 2022 URL:  https://ìâä.ðô/dejatelnost/statistics/migracionnaya/item/34428645 /?ysclid=lo2s4daho5566131154 (accessed: 10/30/2023)

[****] TASS analytical article "The number of refugees arriving in Russia from the territory of Ukraine and Donbass exceeded 4.7 million people" URL:  https://tass.ru/obschestvo/16223423 (accessed: 10/30/2023).

[††††] TASS analytical article "Since February 2022, more than 5.2 million refugees have arrived in Russia from the territory of Ukraine" URL: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/16914809 ?ysclid=lo2rr1c52b835541156 (accessed: 10/30/2023).

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