Becoming a citizen of the Russian Federation just got a lot harder. Now, according to the new law "On Citizenship" recently passed by the Duma, five years of continual residence within Russia­s borders, as well as a knowledge of the constitution and demonstrable command in the Russian language will be required in order for immigrants to receive the much-sought-after Russian passport. At the same time, the Kremlin has announced plans to crack down on illegal immigration, going so far as to place immigration directly under the authority of law-enforcement bodies.

Average living standards in Russia, while usually beneath Western norms, are far and away better than they are for most people in the other C.I.S. countries not to mention China, Africa or most countries in Southeast Asia. As a result, Russia has been a center for immigration over the past decade (and this is not counting internal immigration within Russia itself, mainly from the provinces to the two capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the problem of dealing with refugees from Chechnya and other places). Most of these people are either ethnic or acculturated Russians who already know the language and culture. However, there are also large immigrant groups from non-Russian ethnic groups in the former Soviet Union, as well as others from China, Afghanistan and even as far away as Africa or Southeast Asia.

The problems of assimilating those people who are here legally and coping with illegal migration have grown into major difficulties. For one thing, immigrants are often discriminated against officially by government bodies and unofficially by locals who either view them as threats to their own livelihood or simply possess a general animosity against foreigners. For another, their oft-marginal status causes many to pursue "alternative" lines of work, something that certainly does not endear them to the native Russian population.

All this takes place during a period in which Russia has been experiencing a population decline virtually unprecedented in any industrial country outside of wartime. Since 1991, according to official statistics, the native population of Russia has declined by some five million to 144 million and, barring some sudden drastic change in birth or death rates, within a half a century the population may drop by as much as 50 percent.

However, over the past decade, an estimated 8 million people - most of whom speak Russian - came to Russia as permanent residents, during which time 4 million Russians left. This does not make up for the population drop-off, but it has helped compensate for it to some extent. When one takes into account illegal immigration, on the other hand, the scale of the influx becomes more glaring - the official number of illegal immigrants residing in this country is set at 800,000, but unofficial estimates of the number of migrants residing here can run as high as 16 million, more than one out of every 10 people.

Many experts have called on attempting to make up Russia­s own declining population by making things easier for immigrants to the country, particularly Russian speakers. This would also, the claim is made, have the additional positive effect of providing the country with cheap labor, as many of these immigrants are willing to work for sums considerably lower than most Russians. A problem with this, others have pointed out, is that causing a demographic shift on too large of a scale might, in some parts of Russia, actually go so far as to have consequences on the geopolitical scale. This is particularly the case in the Far East, in which land long contested by Russia and China may have its political alignment shifted by dint of simple demographics (and recent protests against Chinese presence in the Far East should be seen in this context). According to data supplied by the Interior Ministry, some 500,000 Chinese "tourists" come to Russia annually - and by no means do all of these people actually eventually depart.

The new bill can in part be seen as an attempt to address this problem of assimilating further citizens into the country while taking steps to ward off the potential for social conflict and other problems like those mentioned above. New Russian citizens will now be required to speak Russian at an adequate level. Not only will this presumably make it more imperative that these newly acquired citizens assimilate with the population and not become ghettoized, it will naturally serve as a de facto form of encouragement for ethnic or cultural Russians - and, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, there are approximately 25 million ethnic Russians living outside the nation­s borders in the other countries of the former Soviet Union - to return to their motherland.

A real problem with this, as anyone who has lived in Russia for any length of time with their eyes open knows, is that this will do very little to address the problem of illegal immigration. There are several times as many illegal as legal immigrants in Russia, and, if you are willing to put up with a greater or lesser extent of harassment by the authorities and difficulties in finding worthwhile employment, it is possible to stay here more-or-less permanently - most problems with the powers that be can, after all, usually be resolved by the simple expedient of greasing a palm.

Being a part of such an officially nonexistent "black labor force," however, carries with it its own problems, though being deported to one­s home country may not be one of them. For one thing, these people - even citizens of the Russian Federation living in Moscow who do not possess the precious propiska - are ipso facto criminals. Any work they can find is in contradiction to Russian law and, accordingly, they are not entitled to any legal protection with respect to working conditions and can therefore be hired and fired at will and so forth. It also makes it difficult for them to obtain other forms of protection and/or entitlement - legal, medical, residential and so forth - and, of course, especially if they do not look ethnically Russian, results in constant harassment by law-enforcement officials aware that such persons are an easy source of "supplementary" income.

This is what makes it interesting that, according to recent legislation, illegal immigration is now to be dealt with by law-enforcement authorities. President Vladimir Putin last week appointed four-star Police General Andrei Chernenko as head of the Interior Ministry­s Migration Center and gave him the title of deputy interior minister. Chernenko was then given a presidential order to "restore order, which was lacking recently" to the areas of immigration and naturalization, Putin said, as quoted by the RIA official news agency.

No organization in Russia - or anywhere else, for that matter - is free of corruption, but the law-enforcement organs from top to bottom are notorious for their abuses. On the face of it, barring some kind of near-supernatural and truly unprecedented transformation of the character of the Russian law-enforcement system in the near future, this will simply result in more people falling within the purview of official police harassment and unofficial police appropriation of property. Possibly Chernenko himself, by some fluke, has managed to remain more or less free of the taint that has besmirched so much of the apparatus of which he is a part, and it is possible, then, that he may be able to serve in a positive role. However, the sheer level of inertia of the bureaucracy that surrounds him and the extent to which it has been compromised are breathtaking.

The immediate suspicion one might have is that the new laws will simply devolve, like so many more reform efforts before them, into nothing more than a system of better-regulated bribery. However, the fact that such a burning issue is at least being taken sight of is itself a positive sign.