Students stranded abroad indefinitely

Parents currently unable to sponsor new visas

UAE-based parents of those university students or recent graduates who are currently abroad, and don’t have a valid UAE visa, are temporarily unable to apply for their return to the UAE.

Those with a valid UAE visa have been returning to their families in the UAE after following a set process of obtaining clearance from authorities. This comes after the recent easing of travel restrictions that had been introduced because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Normally, those eligible for visa-onarrival would visit home in the UAE during study breaks or after graduation.

Visas suspended

However, former UAE residents who are now students or recent graduates overseas, who no longer have a valid UAE visa, find themselves stranded indefinitely.

Normally, those eligible for visa-on-arrival would visit home in the UAE during study breaks or after graduation. Typically, parents could also sponsor them for entry permits pertaining to visit visas or residency visas. However, a government official reiterated on Wednesday that the issuance of new UAE entry visas was suspended from March 19.

A former Dubai resident who recently graduated from a US university in May is stranded there. His father said the initial plan was to apply for a particular category of a one-year visa, which is for recent graduates, for his son (a Portuguese national) so he could return to the UAE.

“That has all gone out the window because of the situation caused by Covid, and that is fully understandable. At the moment, only UAE residency holders are able to come back in. He’s not in that category anymore and I cannot apply for his graduate one-year visa — so what do we do? He is stranded,” the father said.