Immigration deports 5,000 illegal immigrants

Maldives Immigration has reported that it has deported 5,000 illegal immigrants so far this year.

Information Officer of Maldives Immigration, Hassan Khaleel spoke to “Sun” on Saturday and said that both Immigration and Maldives Police Service detained numerous illegal immigrants in their raids.

Khaleel said that 230 of the 5,000 illegal expatriates had been barred from entering Maldives ever again.

Maldives Immigration is also working on legalizing the large number of illegal immigrants in the country by authorizing work visas for them from companies which they are working for, even though they may not be companies that originally brought them to Maldives for work.

Maldives has a large population of immigrant workers, both in Male’ and the atolls; a large percentage of whom are illegal immigrants.

Labor work and domestic work in the country is dominated by immigrant workers – most of whom are from neighboring countries in the South East Region.