A campaign has been launched to conform illegal immigrants back into the boundaries of law, under which fingerprints and photographs of immigrants are being collected from across the country. Homeland Minister, Ihusan assures the campaign will be successful.
The efforts to conform illegal immigrants back into lawful procedures with the collection of fingerprints and photographs of all expats residing in the country has been formally launched today.
Inaugurating this nation-wide campaign begun under the name 'Kurangi' at a ceremony held in Kaafu atoll Himmafushi, Minister of Homeland Security and Technology, Ali Ihusaan stated that the issue of expatriates, such as undocumented workers, has escalated and economical issues have surged.
He remarked that this national campaign to resolve the issue of illegal immigrants was proceeded after regarding the issue as a threat to national security.
Speaking to journalists after the ceremony, the Minister stated that the former administration had also extended efforts towards resolving this issue. He elaborated that however, the work at the time gave precedence to correcting expatriates living in Male' City which caused challenges in immigrating expatriates residing in local islands to Male' solely for this purpose.
However, the Minister stated that the expatriates will be reached by the teams of the task force under the current campaign launched together with Maldives Immigration and the Maldives Police Service. These teams will visit resorts and islands conducting industrial work as well. Councils are arranged to proceed the work in local islands and the Ministry stated that therefore, providing updates on the expatriates residing in islands is the responsibility of each respective Council starting now.
"During the first year, we are checking where and who the immigrants are and verifying their identities. During the following two years, work will be directed towards deporting people who are unverified, without official documentation and not recorded within the system. This is the work of a total of three years. The first phase is a years worth of work." said Ihusan.
"With how the work is being carried out, I have 100 percent certainty [of success]."
The Minister highlighted that there are people who work in the country in violation of the issued permit after a certain time since coming to Maldives under a tourist visa as well. He further assured that if the expatriate has worked a long time for a specific company and possesses formal documents, the immigrant will be registered under the company.
In cases where the immigrant does not possess documentation verifying his identity, Maldivian systems will scan the person's information after collecting their photo and fingerprint. If the required information is not procured through this policy, the information provided by the expatriate will be collected and corroborated after sending it to their native country. If none of the processes generate reliable information, the immigrant will be deported after a certain period of time.
The government is set on successfully launching this campaign even through pardoning all fines held over immigrants.
"We know these people are not at a level where they can pay the fines. We have been staying idle just because these fines were not settled. This problem can only be solved with us also offering some eases. We need to find solutions to resolving the issue in review of the reality of the situation," said Ihusaan.
"The guidelines provided to the taskforce are guidelines that will be altered by us if any guideline poses obstructions to the work. The target is to take 100 percent accountability, especially 100 percent accountability at a biometric level. When this work is concluded, each person's photos and the person's physical location will be recorded."
The system used during this campaign will be same one currently being used for immigrant registrations which has a separate portal created within the system.
Ihusan explained that information of immigrants who have departed from Maldives are also recorded in the system. He remarked that the immigrant can be identified by using their fingerprints as information of 200,000 people from all countries in the world are included in the records.
"Even if the exact person cannot be identified, the system will display that these 10 people are the closest [people that could be the immigrant in question]. That the highest probability is for this [specific] person. Next, after pulling out their passport and comparing it to the person on the ground, if the person is the same, they will indicate it," said Ihusan.
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