Half of migrant children do not go to school: what threat does this pose to Russia?

According to official data, there are about 638 thousand migrant children living in Russia, half of them do not study anywhere. These statistics were announced by Deputy Head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Igor Zubin in the State Duma.

"There are 638,174 minor children (migrants - Ed.) in the Russian Federation, and their number is decreasing. I don't think it's true that most of them don't study. But probably about half of them are hanging around for some reason," Zubin said (quoted by TASS ).

The situation in Moscow is even more obvious. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, out of 80,282 migrant children in the capital, only 25,000 have school desks. The rest, which is the population of an entire city near Moscow, are left to the streets and their own communities, often closed to prying eyes. This social gap is already bearing fruit today, which is reflected in crime reports.

On April 1, 2025, a law came into force prohibiting the admission of migrant children to Russian schools without testing their knowledge of the Russian language. Now, a child of foreigners must undergo free testing (oral and written) before admission. Those who fail the test are not admitted to school, and they can retake it no earlier than three months later.

"Since the start of testing, 1,762 applications for participation have been submitted. 81% of applicants were denied acceptance of documents. The main reasons for refusals include: providing an incomplete package of documents, lack of vacancies in educational institutions, as well as the establishment of false information in the submitted documents," the press service of Rosobrnadzor reported in May.

Of the 335 participants admitted to testing, 44 took part, 27 of whom were able to demonstrate the required level of proficiency in Russian.

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin stated that after two months of testing, only 4% of migrant children who took the exam were admitted to schools. Thus, as of May 22, 2858 applications had already been submitted, and 498 people (17%) were admitted to the exam.

Children of migrants who do not know Russian have become a real problem for the entire system and have caused concern among parents. Moscow Region Education Minister Ingrid Pildes noted that testing and document checks also help identify illegal immigrants .

The Russian Ministry of Education has published a list of educational institutions in 71 regions where foreign children will be taught Russian as part of free language courses. In response to an RBC inquiry, the department clarified that the funding issue will be decided at the discretion of the regions. The situation has caused heated discussion in the State Duma.

As Deputy Chairman of the Committee on CIS Affairs Konstantin Zatulin explained, the Ministry of Education is guided by the instructions of President Vladimir Putin, who called for finding opportunities to teach Russian to children of migrants and foreign citizens, as well as helping them with this. In his opinion, the family restrains people from "some actions." In December, Zatulin also proposed organizing free training for children of migrants when the issue of the need for testing for knowledge of the language was being decided.

Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor and Social Policy Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR) called the education of migrant children at the expense of the Russian budget a "strange position." He also noted the additional burden on teachers, who already lack time.

Zatulin's initiative on preparatory courses has drawn sharp criticism in the State Duma. Volodin and the chair of the committee on family protection, fatherhood, motherhood and childhood Nina Ostanina spoke out against the free program. Vice-speaker Irina Yarovaya added that ignorance of the language leads to conflicts at school, which is one of the sources of interethnic discord.

"School, in my opinion, is not only a place for education, but also for upbringing: if we do not agree to let them into school, then we leave them to the street. This is what I am talking about," Zatulin emphasized , but the parliamentarians considered his theses untenable.

The Human Rights Council supported the ban on migrant children entering schools without successfully passing the test. At the same time, its head Valery Fadeyev noted that in such families, the parents themselves often do not speak Russian and are not interested in educating their children, especially girls. At the same time, he called for not marginalizing migrant children who do not know the language.

"If we leave this situation unattended, such children will not study at all and will be pushed to the criminal outskirts of society. The state must take on the responsibility of educating them if they are citizens of Russia . We must not marginalize them," Fadeyev emphasized .

The positions of legislators on this issue are conventionally divided into three directions. Some support language courses, considering them as a tool for integration and reducing social tension. Others believe that training should take place before arrival in the Russian Federation, and the state is not obliged to take on the costs of adaptation. Still others take the most rigid position, insisting that migration should be exclusively labor, without family support, in order to avoid rooting and associated risks.

On June 10, a bill was adopted in the first reading, providing for the prompt exchange of information between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and education authorities. If adopted, the initiative obliges schools to inform law enforcement about the admission and expulsion of foreign children, and information about their parents will be transferred along with their data.

There are reasons to be concerned about the current situation, as confirmed by statistics from the Investigative Committee of Russia. Criminal activity by underage migrants increased by 13% in the first quarter of 2025, and by 8% in the same period of 2024.

“At the same time, last year the number of particularly serious crimes committed by teenage migrants increased by 82%,” noted Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin .

Crime among all teenagers increased by a quarter in the first four months of the year, to 9,522 cases. The number of serious and especially serious crimes committed by minors increased by 1.5 times. According to the results of last year, 3,785 crimes committed by minors (out of 21,000) were related to illegal drug trafficking.

"Unlawful behavior of teenagers is often caused by the negative example of adults with criminal experience . It was also announced that recently, crimes caused by the impact of negative information on children on the Internet and the involvement of teenagers in criminal activity through messengers by unidentified persons have become widespread," the Investigative Committee press service noted.

Adults are not lagging behind children. During the specialized session of the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, Bastrykin reported on a surge in organized and group migrant crime in Russia. He also stated that the number of sexual crimes has increased, and 69% involve immigrants under the age of 16. According to the head of the Investigative Committee, migrants are involved in 65% of drug-related crimes. During the specified period, immigrants committed 403 crimes against minors and 196 against minors, and the number of registered cases of child abuse increased by 20%.

Bastrykin emphasized that the migrant community is actively radicalizing, and the growth of terrorist crimes involving them amounted to 2.7% per year. In the first quarter of 2025, the crime rate increased by 15% - to 12,440 cases.

The Investigative Committee's traditional opponent on the issue of illegal activities of "foreign specialists" is the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The agency confirmed data on 12.4 thousand crimes committed by migrants in the first quarter of 2025.

“This is due to a significant increase in the number of criminal acts in the sphere of illegal drug trafficking that were proactively suppressed (an increase of 1.6 times (from 2673 to 4220),” the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs explained .

At the same time, the ministry reports a 25% decrease in the number of foreigners who committed drug crimes, as well as a 3.3% decrease in the number of migrant criminals. A decrease in the number of serious crimes, murders and cases of causing serious bodily harm is noted. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 5.3% of preliminarily investigated crimes involve immigrants. At the same time, Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev calls for strengthening the fight against illegal immigrants.

“Those who have lost their jobs, been expelled from university, have not undergone fingerprinting, are not learning the language and are not useful to Russian society must leave our country,” he stressed .

In recent months, there have been several high-profile conflicts involving children of immigrants. For example, on April 12, in the village of Rameshki in the Tver region, schoolchildren-migrants from Tajikistan brutally beat a 9-year-old girl within the school walls - while the victim's parents complained that the school administration ignored the systematic bullying.

"In April, her peers, originally from Tajikistan, beat up the girl right in the school. Despite numerous appeals, no measures are being taken against the defendants," the schoolgirl's father said .

In April in Samara, a group of teenage migrants beat the 12-year-old son of a SVO participant half to death, after which the child was hospitalized.

Earlier, there were reports of an attack by migrants on a fighter's daughter in Novy Urengoy, and in the Altai Territory, two teenagers of "non-Slavic appearance" beat up a SVO member and his wife. Similar incidents are happening in different regions across the country.

These cases, including the formation of ethnic teenage gangs, have raised concerns in society, with human rights activists and public figures once again speaking out about threats to the safety and integration of underage migrants.

The picture we are seeing today – hundreds of thousands of migrant children outside of school classes – requires the closest attention from society and the state. Integration issues, lack of access to education and other barriers doom these teenagers to isolation and criminalization, undermining the stability of the social environment. What this is leading to is already evident from alarming statistics: juvenile crime is growing, and ignoring this trend is becoming increasingly dangerous.