It’s important for overstayers to come forward and regularize their status.
Immigration Department Director Nemani Vuniwaqa says they continue to work on identifying those that breach their visa’s terms and conditions to visit Fiji.
Vuniwaqa says some are out in villages and settlements however no one is owning up and he’s urging them to come forward and regularize their status or face the brunt of the law.
”There are some might be building a family and hopefully they are not building an Empire in the village .It’s just a matter of regularizing their status because for every foreigner they have to do it .Come a time they want to apply for citizenship, come a time to want to apply for a permit, it won’t be easy if their status are illegal in the country because there is another process to go through in order to regularize their status. They have to apply for the uplift prohibited immigrant’s status then they can apply for a valid permit.”
Meanwhile in 2016, a total of fifty-two removal orders were issued, seventy-seven in 2015, thirty-five in 2014 and twenty-six in 2013.
