MOSCOW, March 26 (RAPSI) - The Federal Migration Service is working on an immigration-control bill that is expected to take effect by 2016, Kommersant reports Wednesday. According to the newspaper, the new legislation will grant the agency police authority.

The bill would allow immigration control agencies to check IDs, conduct screenings and body searches of foreign nationals and, if necessary, demand and obtain certain documents – all as part of immigration control. The various Federal Migration Service departments will be responsible for immigration control, the newspaper reports.

The bill's registration was reported earlier on the website for provisional laws and regulations. According to a short reference to the document, the law, if passed, could take effect in 2016.

Almost 17.7 million foreign nationals visited Russia last year.

A United Nations study published last year ranked Russia as the world’s second-largest host of foreign migrants, with more than 11 million. The Federal Migration Service has estimated the number of illegal migrants at 3 million.