UAE gives illegal immigrants fresh deadline to return home

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Naim-Ul-Karim
The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set a November 03 fresh deadline to help thousands of Bangladeshi workers, who are staying in the UAE illegally, return home escaping fine or imprisonment, sources said.
The UAE government set the earlier deadline on June 03 and asked all Bangladeshi workers staying there illegally to return home or regularise job by September 04.
On expiry of the deadline, the UAE government extended it up to November 03 keeping no option for regularising service for staying in the country any longer and asked them to return home by the stipulated time or face rigorous punishment.
"We have received a facsimile today (Thursday) from our mission in the UAE stating that until the fresh deadline expires on November 03 none of the unauthorised Bangladeshi workers will be punished for overstaying," a senior government official told the FE.
Requesting not to be named, he said all workers staying illegally, who could not regularise their jobs before the previous deadline expired on September 4, would be required to collect out-pass from the Bangladesh mission in the UAE to return home.
Official sources said the UAE government assured Bangladesh that the workers who would return home before the current deadline expired could come back to the country again with jobs.
Several thousand unauthorised job seekers have already collected out- passes to return home, sources said, adding every day several hundred workers throng the Bangladesh mission in the UAE to collect out-passes.
There are over one hundred thousand Bangladeshis in the UAE who are staying illegally, though the government statistics show that some 40,000 are overstaying in the country, sources said.
They said about 20,000 unauthorised workers returned home while over 10,000 managed to regularise their jobs before the deadline expired on September 04 under a general mercy of the UAE government.
When contacted, a senior government official said the government is concerned about the deportation by the UAE government.
"Our relation with the UAE is on such a strong footing that any single incident cannot make it shaky," a diplomatic source said.
The countrywise trend of manpower export reveals that the Middle-East countries including the UAE are major overseas job markets for Bangladesh.
Over 0.7 million Bangladeshis, since the Liberation War, have so far gone to the UAE with jobs.
Asked about the reason of their becoming unauthorised, sources said when any job seeker changes his job without permission of the company that has recruited him from Bangladesh he or she becomes unauthorised.
Besides, they said, there are some other unauthorised workers who left Bangladesh in connivance with a section of dishonest recruiters.