Traditionally seen as a country of emigration, Russia has become one of the main migration hubs worldwide following the collapse of the Soviet Union. These migratory processes were driven largely by the rapidly growing Russian economy and the declining working-age population. Migrant labor represented the primary source available to make up for shortages in the domestic labor force and to meet the needs of Russia's oil-fueled construction boom. Understandably, in the light of these large-scale migratory flows, post-Soviet Russia has been the subject of a great surge in academic research and writing on migration. The list of topics covered in academic publications on the Russian migration regime is very long: push-and-pull factors of migration; difficult living and working conditions among migrants; immigration laws and practices; racism, xenophobia, and the exclusion of migrants; corruption and migration governance; the health status of migrants; the political economy of housing and migrants’ everyday lives; female migrants’ experiences; migrant illegality and the shadow economy; the social and cultural adaptation of migrants; migrant religiosity and the role of Islam in migrants’ everyday lives; the Eurasian Economic Union and its impact on labor migration; the radicalization of migrants; transnational practices and the livelihoods of migrants; and family migration.

Despite a wide diversity of scholarly explanations for, and approaches to, explaining the Russian migration regime, most studies are of an empirical nature and rarely situate the Russian case within broader migration studies scholarship. Consequently, as Agnieszka Kubal rightly claims in this book, the Russian case is under-represented in theoretical and comparative debates on contemporary migration regimes. Thus, the existing frameworks on immigrants’ incorporation into and adaptation to a new environment remains predominantly limited to the North American and west European experiences. By situating Russia's legal immigration regime in comparative perspective with the United States and other major migrant-receiving jurisdictions in Europe, Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia will make an important and timely contribution both to migration studies in general, and to comparative migration studies and socio-legal perspectives on the legal incorporation of immigration in particular. A central thrust of the book is the claim that “…the evolution of Russian immigration law in ‘the everyday work of producing, defining and precluding both movement and connection’ follows a well-established logic of more global trends of migration governance” (3) and “…modern Russia seems rather to subscribe to a more global trend towards ‘irregularization’ and deportability, leading to a proliferation of insecure migration statuses” (4). Another valuable contribution of the book is an attempt to advance the existing research on Russian legal culture by challenging the long-established assumptions about Russia's exceptionalism in the legal sphere: lack of the rule of law, corruption, legal nihilism, and an arbitrary justice system. Focusing on the everyday lived experiences of people dealing with immigration and refugee laws, Kubal illustrates that the situation on the ground is much more complex and context-dependent than the dominant explanations portray. This claim is solidly sustained along the different chapters, and it makes the book highly readable, especially from a socio-legal perspective. The book also deserves a special credit for its methodological rigor and inclusion of diverse perspectives, voices, and actors involved in migration processes. Many studies of migration in Russia either focus on (a) migrants’ experiences, (b) the expert opinions of migrant rights NGOs, experts, lawyers, and activists, or (c) Russian state officials’ views, but very few studies cover and juxtapose these different actors and perspectives. Kubal's study is unique and innovative in this respect as it traces and maps the contrasting views and experiences of migrants, immigration lawyers, asylum seekers, refugees, Russian judges, and immigration officials.

As is the case with many books, Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia has some limitations. It mainly covers immigrants’ everyday experiences with immigration and refugee laws in formal institutions and arenas (courts, FMS offices, NGOs), where a small percentage of migrants and refugees “end up,” while the majority of migrants in Russia organize their daily life “on the street”—outside formal institutions—navigating the repressive legal landscape via various informal and illegal strategies. In other words, the book tells us little about “how the immigration laws work on the street,” where a large army of migrants come into contact with immigration officials and police officers on a daily basis. Hence, this book is more useful as an ethnography of “the everyday experiences of immigration laws in formal institutions,” rather than of how immigration laws and policies are applied and experienced “on the street” where migrants and the relevant state officials interact on a daily basis.