Govt. designates expat issues as national security threat

Chief of Defense Force Maj. Gen. Abdulla Shamaal has said that the state had designated the issue of expatriates that has boiled over as a threat to national security.

In a meeting of the Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Relations, the chief described the events unfolding in the Maldives as similar to events that can be seen from a colonized country.

He was speaking about the recent spate of violent protests across the nation by expatriates.

He said that the issue of expatriates was a long-running one and that a committee formed to advise by the defense force had conducted a study that showed there were around 200,000 migrants in the country.

Out of them, 179,954 individuals were in the Maldives without proper documents, and 66,000 were in the Maldives with the proper documents, according to the study, said the chief.

Maj. Gen. Shamaal said that it was a huge threat to national security and that the reason for this was due to unregulated and open borders. He said that this was not the time when one country would invade the other with weapons.

“A large number of people have invaded the country in other words, we are seeing events visible from a colonized nation from them (expatriates). They have integrated into every part of society. That includes marrying locals and every other way. They are now very much involved in criminal activity as well.” Said Maj. Gen. Shamaal.

The Chief said that the designation of expatriates as a national security threat, the policies would be changed to allow “fast track” procedures, to arrest undocumented expatriates and rapidly repatriate them through discussions.

He said that the regularization program currently underway meant that the entry of expatriates into the country was halted for now and even well-known famous companies of the country were also involved in the unlawful employment of expatriates.

Maj. Gen. Shamaal said that discussions of the security council had led to the resonation that the country had enough expatriates for projects to be run for the next six years and that discussions were underway to assign them with companies after regulating them.

“We gave a lot of ideas like these. This is huge. Not something that can be solved within 24 hours.” Said the chief.

He said that this was an issue when it threatened the safety and security of the nation and would also be addressed as radically.

Under the government regularization program, 43,000 expatriates had registered and Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail had said that the government was targeting to repatriate 20,000 expatriates by the end of 2020.