Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Ashraf Mohamed Ali has said that one of the highlights of 'Operation Kurangi', a joint initiative of institutions under the Ministry of Home Affairs to address the issue of illegal immigrants in the Maldives.

He added that many expatriates come and work in the Maldives on 'free visas'.

Speaking on state media PSM's Raajje Miadhu' programme, Ashraf said that many expatriates are working in the Maldives on "free visas" without anyone to claim responsibility for them.

"While collecting information, a lot of expatriates mention that they are on a free visa or open visa. There is a large number of expatriates without anyone responsible for them. This is not a term known in our regulations. Expatriates come to Maldives under a company quota. But there are numerous people working without any valid permits. Our aim is to ensure that every migrant worker has someone who is responsible for them," Ashraf said.

He added that a majority of the expatriates working under the so-called 'free visas' struggle with language barriers and are unable to contact authorities if anything happens to them.

"Most of these migrant workers do not know their address in Maldives," Ashraf said.

He said that they describe their accommodation based on nearby locations and have no idea what their accommodations addresses are. Ashraf added that a lot of these migrant workers do not even carry a mobile phone.

Highlighting the challenges in providing information to migrant workers, Ashraf said that the second phase of the operation will include a plan to address the issue.

"The operation will commence in all the islands at the same time. We have sorted out a lot of logistics issues. During the first day, we only had 200 migrant workers attend the session. But once we explained that we are not trying to detain them, over 600 migrant workers showed up for the sessions," Ashraf said.

Speaking at the 'Aha' forum held on April 29, Minister Ali Ihsan had said that there were a large number of illegal immigrants in the Maldives and the total number of foreigners in the country was yet to be confirmed.

The Minister said that the authorities are working on obtaining details of all the expatriates including their thumbprints and work permit records within a year. The process commenced on 2 May 2023, with biometric data of 532 expatriates collected in K. Himmafushi. The second phase of the operation began in K. Maafushi.