ShareKUWAIT: Director General of the Residency Affairs Directorate Maj Gen Talal Maarafi issued a circular yesterday in which he mentioned the procedures of benefiting from an amnesty decision by Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Sheikh Khaled Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah to allow residency violators to leave the country from Jan 29 until Feb 22 from any airport or border post without paying fines.
The circular includes:
* Every department should designate a certain number of employees to receive violators and complete the necessary procedures to correspond with the criminal detectives department so that regular work is not affected.
* Grant residency to violators who want it if they meet the conditions and pay fines regardless of the violation period and nationality of the violator (except for travel document holders).
The following will be taken into consideration with regards to the violation period:
* Regular and temporary residencies as well as visit visas must have expired before Jan 24, 2018.
* People who entered the country with visit visas on Jan 23, 2018 or earlier should leave before Feb 22, 2018.
* People who entered the country with work or residency visas that expired on Jan 23, 2018 or earlier will be given a temporary residency and must leave the country before Feb 22, 2018, unless they get a regular residency visa according to the rules.
For persons who are reported to have absconded, the following applies:
* Absconders are allowed to leave the country directly during the period mentioned in the ministerial decision, whether holders of article 18 or 20 residencies, provided that the absconding report is dated before Jan 24, 2018.
* For holders of regular and temporary residencies as well as entry visas expiring on Jan 24, 2018 or after this date, regular procedures apply, as they are not under the amnesty decision.
Those who have lost their passports and received new passports or travel documents should fill up a loss form to be stamped by the designated employee at the residency detectives department, followed by these procedures:
* If a residency or visa is found that ended before Jan 24, 2018, it will be matched with the person's file at the department or the original civil ID if it exists, then the unified number will be written on the last page of the new passport or document and stamped with the department's seal, so violators can leave the country without having to transfer passport data.
If it is not possible to get any information or no information is available of the violator, a form will be given to the person and they will be asked to go to the criminal evidence department. When they return, the following steps will be taken:
* If it is found that a residency or a visa exists, the abovementioned procedures will be followed.
* If there is no data for them, a database will be created and a temporary residency will be issued on the computer only without a unified number. The document will be stamped with the department's seal, and violators will be asked to leave the country and will not be allowed to correct their status.
* If data exist of the person at the security supervision system that matches the data at the criminal evidence department, and if there is difference in the data in the new passport or travel document, the name and data will be corrected as per the passport.
* If the person is found wanted for another reason other than violation of the residency law, they will be arrested immediately and sent to the concerned authority.
By Hanna Al-Saadoun
