A notification of the ban on entry to Russia

Foreign citizens entering or staying on the territory of Russia at any time may face a ban on entry into Russia or a decision on the undesirability of their stay.

Such a decision threatens:

• - illegally staying, i.e. when exceeding the term of staying, illegally entering, etc. (the decision on the ban is made by the Administration for Migration Issues)
• - those who are generally outside of Russia, whose stay is considered undesirable (deported, convicted, included in the sanction list, etc.) (the decision on the ban is taken by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Administration for Migration Issues of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Financial Monitoring),
• - legally staying, but representing a threat to the state and society, (the Russian Federal Security Service, Ministry of Defense, The Russian Foreign Intelligence, The Russian Federal Consumer Rights Protection and Human Health Control Service)/
  According to our observations, in about 70 percent of cases, foreign citizens will not be told about the entry ban not from the he Administration for Migration Issues authorities, who actually make 90% of the decisions on non-permit of entry, but from the FSB Border Guard officers when trying to enter Russia.

Another 20 percent of foreign citizens find out about the prohibition on entry only when applying for a patent, work permit or Temporary residence permit. Rather, not when filing documents, but directly on the appointed day of receipt and instead of obtaining a patent for work, they are refused extradition due to the decision regarding the undesirability of the foreign citizen.

Very rarely working foreigners find out about the prohibition from their employer, who receives a notification from UBM about revocation of a patent or work permit demanding to terminate the employment contract with such a foreign citizen within 3 working days.

Please note: the notice of an entry ban sent or handed to a foreigner usually contains information about the reasons for the ban, and a notice that is sent to the employer doesn’t contain such information, since it is confidential information and can be provided only to a foreign citizen or his authorized representative.

In fact, according to the law, the federal authority is obliged to notify a foreign citizen about the decision made on non-entry, but such notifications in most cases do not reach foreigners.

And the blame for this lies precisely on foreign citizens, since many do not live in places of registration, evade registration by the actual place of residence or work. Thus, the Administration for Migration Issues bodies fulfill their duty, but they can send a notice of a ban on entry only at the last known address. If the address of the foreign citizen is not known by the UBM, the notification is not sent at all. And if the address is fictitious, the foreign citizen will not receive such notification and it may aggravate the situation - for example, having a ban on entering Russia for 3 years, but not knowing about the decision, the foreign citizen risks getting a ban for 10 years already. For many, such a ban can be lifelong.

The form of notification of the decision on non-entry.

The form of such notification is established by law only for the UMM bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia by the 1024th Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the 284th Order of the FMS, other federal agencies can notify in virtually any form. Moreover, this form is recommended, that is optional. Cancel the entry ban due to non-compliance of the notification with the established form will not work.

The form of the entry ban notification may vary significantly between different fed-eral agencies. The law only stipulates the obligation of the initiator to send a notice of a ban on entry to a foreign citizen and notify the FSB Directorate of the decision taken in respect of each individual foreigner.

The language of the notification of the non-entry decision.

The notification itself should be in the state language of office work, i.e. in Russian, there is no obligation to translate it into the language of a foreign citizen, but in the summer of 2017, at the immigration control point at Pulkovo airport, foreign citizens began to issue notices of entry ban in Uzbek and Tajik languages.

In the Pskov region, one of our clients received a notification with a translation into English, although he is a citizen of Azerbaijan. This is not a gross violation and does not mean illegality or violation of the notification procedure.

The Administration for Migration Issues violates the notification procedure

1024 Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, which establishes the timing of the consideration and form of documents, provides for the delivery of a foreign citizen only detachable part of such a notice. In practice, foreign nationals are actually handed a copy of the full notice. In fact, the Migration Board violates the order of notification on prohibition, but foreign citizens should be grateful for such a “violation”, because if the Administration for Migration Issues officials act strictly within the law and hand only the detachable part of such notification, the foreign citizen will not have written information on the date of the decision and the deadline for the entry ban.

The main information in the notification of the decision on the ban on entry is an indication of the rule of law on the basis of which such a decision was taken. This may be Article 26 or Section 27 of the Federal Law No. 114 “On the Procedure for Exiting and Entering Russia”. Unfortunately, officials do not always explain the reason, but indicate only the article, part and paragraph of this law, but foreign citizens often can’t unterstand clearly the real reason for the ban on entry.

Procedure and deadlines for appealing against the entry ban

The ban on entry or the decision on the undesirability of staying can be appealed in two ways:

• through a higher authority. For example, the decision to ban entry made by the Department of the Federal Migration Service of the Vyborg District of St. Petersburg can be appealed through the Migration Board, which can cancel or leave the decision;
• Appeal of a ban on entry in a court proceeds by filing a claim on behalf of a foreign citizen.

Since this procedure has many nuances in terms of preparing and filing a claim, the procedure for appealing is described in a separate article/

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