Manama: Kuwait has announced an amnesty for foreign violators of the country's residency laws. The amnesty will run from April 1 to 30, 2020 and during this period, residency violators, irregular expatriates, can leave the county without any fines, according to the decree issued by Home Minister Anas al-Salaih yesterday.
Expatriates who have overstayed in the country without valid residency permit (Iqama) or are otherwise undocumented will be allowed to leave the country without paying fines and will be allowed re-entry in the future, the new decree stated.
Residency violators with a travel ban or active criminal case against them must visit the General Administration of Residence Affairs to discuss their cases, while those who have a travel ban against them are not eligible for the amnesty.
Those who do not leave the country by the stipulated deadline will have to pay penalties and will be deported and banned from re-entry to Kuwait.
According to the officials in the Ministry of Interior, this is a good opportunity for the irregular residence to leave the country and they will have the chance to come back in the future, rather than being blacklisted if caught and deported.
But some expatriates are allowed to regularise their overstay by paying fines include domestic workers, migrants who became irregular on or after March 1 2020, as well as spouses, parents, and children of Kuwaiti citizens.
There are currently over one lakh residential violators in the country, according to the ministry. The country last granted a full amnesty period for irregular immigrants was in January 2018. Before that amnesty period, more than 1.5 lakh people were irregular due to residency and labour law violations. But only 57,000 people were used the three-month amnesty to legalise their stay or leave the county.
Kuwait has also been affected by the spread of COVID-19 with as many as 225 infection cases including 57 recoveries. In order to curb the spread of the virus, Kuwait has imposed night curfew and implemented many stringent measures.
Kuwait has already halted its flights to several countries, including India. But, Kuwait has been granted special flight services to some countries to repatriate their own citizens recently. And India also suspended inbound international flights till April 14. It is not clear how the Indians who use amnesty in this situation will go back to India.
Though the amnesty is a step in the right direction, it should be expanded to allow all irregular migrants to regularise their status without cost, said the Migrant-Rights.org in their web portal. Travel during this health crisis is not advisable, as Kuwait itself has acknowledged with the closure of its airport.
"Testing for COVID-19 should be provided to migrants in vulnerable situations, and to all migrants returning home. Countries of origin will likely be unwilling to accept deportees without stringent testing. Countries like India, from where most of Kuwait's migrants hail, are under complete lockdown and may not be able to receive returnees at all.", the group website added.
