Crimes in the Field of Migration Legislation as Objects of Forensic Study

Counteraction to immigration crimes has remained an urgent problem in the legal sphere of Russia during the past few decades of its post-Soviet period. A large number of corresponding research publications, together with a high level of criminal activities in this sphere, predetermined a need to analyze the approaches to producing the research output that would be relevant for the practice of law enforcement. The empirical analysis of criminal cases showed that the majority of cases are so-called “mundane” crimes, either one-time or occasional fictitious registration of a foreign citizen or a stateless person, or providing accommodation or a workplace to migrants without a permit of residence on the territory of the Russian Federation. It is much more seldom that complex and serial forms of these activities are uncovered, carried out by criminal communities of a highly-organized type (criminal groups, criminal organizations) that include not only persons with an expert knowledge of the migration legislation, but also specially authorized officials from migration departments whose job should consist in ensuring legal order in this sphere. Insufficient detection rate for migration crimes can be explained by both complex conspiracy measures used by the perpetrators and a lack of research that would take into account the outlined trends. The author undertakes a brief analysis of a number of similar terms denoting migration offences, specifies the name of the developed criminalistic methodology and its object in relation to the list of criminal infringements that require scientific research. The author also shows the necessity of turning to the potential of integrated forensic methodologies due to a complex character of these illegal activities that involve not only diverse methods of hiding crimes, but also a substantial corruption component, and presents a forensic classification of migration crimes that should be taken into account in the further work on the elements of the outlined special forensic methodology.