Federal Security Service officials said that members of foreign terrorist organizations have infiltrated the illegal migrant population and are actively seeking to destroy the country, Interfax reported Thursday.
At a Federation Council panel on illegal migration, Alexander Roshchupkin, head of the service's department for analyzing counter-intelligence, said that forces acting within the illegal migrant population "are carrying out intelligence and terrorist activity against Russia."
Several officers of foreign intelligence services have been arrested for spying in Russia's North Caucasus, he said.
Although Roshchupkin didn't provide details, officials in North Caucasus regions said earlier that local Islamic radicals are influenced by radical activists from the Middle East.
According to the security official, ghettos created by migrants living in isolation also create threats to society.
The fact that security officials have no real data on illegal migrants is the biggest problem for them, he said, adding that a "balance should be found" between protecting the rights of migrants and ensuring the nation's security.
President Vladimir Putin earlier ordered Federal Migration Service officials to implement rules allowing migrants from Central Asia to come to Russia for work with foreign travel passports by 2015.
While citizens of the former Soviet Union can travel to Russia without a visa, they are also able to use their domestic passports to travel.
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