The Latvian Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) has sent notifications to 841 Russian citizens stating that they must leave the country by Oct. 13, Public Broadcasting of Latvia (LSM) reported. According to the agency, these individuals failed to submit the necessary documents to obtain a residence permit in line with the 2024 amendments to the country’s Immigration Law.
According to the broadcast, this group of Russian citizens had also missed the deadline to apply to take a required Latvian language exam. Maira Roze, the head of OCMA, noted that some of those who received notifications “had heard or seen nothing,” and had only realized something was wrong when their pensions stopped being paid.
Representatives of the Immigration Service of the State Border Guard are conducting inspections of the Russian nationals who did not respond to the OCMA’s call. According to Lieutenant Colonel Gatis Rūža, head of the Riga Service of the State Border Guard, the majority of individuals whose residence permits are no longer valid have already left the country.
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I don’t want to insist on the terminology, it’s rarely a good way to invest your time, but just reread the article snippet and invert the places of Russia and Latvia.
Keep in mind that Latvia was part of the USSR and some of those Russian citizens have been living there since before the break up of the soviet union.
I hope you agree that expelling pensioners without even giving them a fair chance to regularize their position is a form off persecution.