Acquisition of Citizenship of the Russian Federation by Compatriots Living Abroad: the Problems of Implementation of the Legislation
Review. The problem of acquiring citizenship by compatriots living abroad remains pending as legal regulation of this sphere of legal relations is still being reformed. The Russian Federation is interested in "returning" to its territory those who in their views, culture, mentality and language are similar to the residents of the State. However, different categories of aliens, including illegal ones, tend to come to Russia and they will not bring any benefit to the country and its citizens. Therefore, the state constantly sets "filters" to prevent aliens from coming to Russia. Such legislative amendments, unfortunately, are detrimental to compatriots living abroad. The article considers this problem in detail and suggests a number of measures that can help overcome this problem. Legislative innovations have facilitated the procedure of acquiring citizenship only at first sight; in practice the situation has changed for the worse. Therefore, in some cases it is reasonable to return to previous versions of laws, in other cases new methods of legal regulation of relevant public relations should be proposed.