Indonesian amnesty-seekers can renew passports for free
TEMPORARY EXTENSION CAN HELP THEM GET 6-MONTH VISA TO STAY BACK FOR JOB SEARCH
Indonesian amnesty-seekers who want to remain in the UAE can temporarily extend their expired passports without paying any fee, an Indonesian diplomat told Gulf News.
“The Indonesian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Consulate General in Dubai are temporarily extending amnesty-seekers’ expired passports free of charge until June 2019 to help them apply for a six-month visa and search for a new job,” said Yanuar Nasrun, consul at the embassy in Abu Dhabi.
The move will help Indonesians take advantage of the UAE’s visa amnesty and get a six-month visa to search for a job. “They can get the passport extended within two days, whereas regular passport renewal takes four days,” he said.
About 1,000 Indonesian amnesty seekers approached the embassy as of Tuesday [since August 1] and more than 60 per cent of them want to continue living in the UAE, Nasrun said. Most of them are housemaids who overstayed their visas; some of them have already found a new sponsor and others are ready to apply for the six-month visa, he said.
Amnesty-seekers who do not have a valid passport have to first get an emergency certificate from the embassy to go back home, or obtain a new passport to get a six-month visa or new job visa.
People who entered the UAE on a visa, but later became undocumented, can also visit their embassies in Abu Dhabi, provided they have an ID document issued by the UAE authorities and want to leave the country.
All other amnesty-seekers must approach the Amnesty Centre or Tasheel centres to process their applications in Abu Dhabi.
Work hours extended
Meanwhile, the Indonesian embassy has extended its working hours to 8pm for amnesty-seekers, beyond its regular working time of 9am to 5pm. Though most of the amnesty-seekers visit the embassy in the morning, staff wait till 8pm for some people who turn up late in the evening, the consul said.
Most amnesty-seekers are women; only three or four are men. Of around 102,000 Indonesians in the UAE, many are housemaids and 50 per cent of them are in Abu Dhabi, the consul said. The embassy received around 1,500 passports of Indonesians from the UAE authorities just before the amnesty started.