Over 12,000 people overstayed their World Cup visas in the Russian Federation. They are being deported as quickly as possible according to the Russian security services. Over 650,000 people received ‘Fan ID’ permit cards and approximately 5,000 remain in-country.
The head of the migration department of the Interior Ministry, Andrei Kayushin said, “In the main, they were all law-abiding and left the country in their own time…We are undertaking operations to deport them, and I hope that they will all be deported by March 30.”
Initial reports showed that by the end of the year, 12,000 people had overstayed their permits but Kayushin said that security services swiftly reduced the number to its current level, reported Associated Press.
Moscow maintains a very strict immigration policy and faces a terrorist threat from migrants entering the Russian Federation from the Caucasus, a hotbed of Islamic extremism, after returning from the Middle Easter wars fighting for the Islamic State.
