Mironov vows to reintroduce rejected migrant patent bills in State Duma

Sergey Mironov, leader of A Just Russia, said his faction would resubmit migration bills rejected by the State Duma on abolishing patents and introducing organized recruitment, expanding regional powers, and reducing visa-free stays from 90 to 30 days. He said the key bill failed because 398 deputies from United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation did not participate in the vote.

Sergey Mironov, chairman of A Just Russia, said his faction would again submit to the State Duma migration bills that the chamber had rejected. He made the statement in an interview with Gazeta.Ru published on November 7.

Gazeta.Ru reported that the Duma rejected six bills tightening rules on the stay and employment of foreign nationals. The government and committees of the Federation Council did not support four other initiatives concerning migration registration, the employment of foreign nationals and the entry of minors. These bills had carried over from the previous Duma term. The website ppt.ru specifies that Mironov's group's bill abolishing patents was rejected on October 22.

Three faction bills

“Our faction introduced three of the six bills rejected by the Duma,” Mironov said. He listed bills on abolishing patents and switching to organized recruitment of migrants, granting regions additional powers in migration registration, and reducing foreigners' visa-free stay from 90 to 30 days. The politician called the chamber's decision a serious blow to the party's principled position on migration. He also recalled that the faction's earlier initiative requiring migrants to enter the country with voluntary health insurance had been rejected.

Сергей Миронов на заседании Государственной думы (архив)

A group of deputies, including Mironov, introduced the organized recruitment package in December 2025. The main bill, No. 1091179-8, proposed replacing patents with employment tied to a specific employer: moving to another company would be prohibited under threat of deportation, while a worker's period of stay would be limited to the duration of the employment contract. The authors also proposed mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of foreign nationals within 30 days of entry. In the explanatory note, the deputies specifically pointed to the large number of illegally issued certificates confirming knowledge of the Russian language.

Fedot Tumusov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection, introduced the bill reducing visa-free stays to 30 days per year (No. 1092748-8) in December 2025. Foreign nationals can currently stay in Russia without a visa for 90 days during a year.

Why the bills failed

Mironov said the key bill abolishing patents failed because 398 lawmakers did not participate in the vote—every deputy from United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. “I wonder what they promised voters before the election,” the A Just Russia leader said.

Mironov referred to the Migration Policy Concept signed by the president. He said it explicitly identifies the introduction of organized recruitment and the right of regions to restrict migration as objectives. If his colleagues have objections to A Just Russia's initiatives, they can submit their own versions, and the faction will support them, he added. “But until that happens, we will continue to resubmit bills that are of fundamental importance to our voters,” Mironov said. He did not specify when the bills would be resubmitted.

Organized recruitment remains one of the central issues on the migration agenda. On October 2, the party's website said that Mironov had submitted a bill to the Duma on targeted organized recruitment and abolishing the patent system. At the time, he cited data from the Security Council staff showing that foreign nationals held more than 1.7 million valid patents as of July 1. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry is preparing its own organized recruitment pilot project, but Kommersant reported that its launch could be postponed from January 1 to March 1, 2027.

Photo: State Duma press service / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0), archive

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