Immigration’s Ramadan operation: Expats with valid visa increase

Maldives Immigration have reported the number of expatriates working at Male’ City local market with valid visas have gone up.

Irregular expatriates engaged in commerce at local market has been a long prevalent concern by locals, after which Immigration conducted a special operation during Ramadan.

In a post on X, Immigration shared its assessment of its operation and added the number of immigrant workers with valid visas have increased.

Meanwhile, the authority also said it has received information to its ‘Immigration Watch’ whistleblower platform about predatory business conduct by foreign vendors during Ramadan.

Immigration first inspected smaller market stalls in Male’ city, initially on February 18^th and apprehended two irregular expatriates. The authority next inspected local market and travellers’ market areas.

The authority, earlier on February 22^nd, conducted the said operation and identified stalls which expatriates used discreetly. The authority later inspected these stalls on February 24^th and checked the documents of the expatriates that ran these venues.

This is the second large-scale operation of Immigration at local market venues following complaints of unlawful business conduct by expatriates, with a previous such operation conducted that revealed multiple immigrants operating stalls illegally.

The current administration has previously affirmed it intends to completely solve the issue of illegal immigrants within the first presidential term for which the Immigration has launched a nation-wide effort in collecting biometrics of all foreigners.