Swoop nabs 11 illegal immigrants and their employer

Kareem Shaheen

• Last Updated: November 16. 2009 12:16AM UAE / November 15. 2009 8:16PM GMT

An Asian investor and 11 men he employed were arrested in a raid on a carpenter’s workshop in Sharjah as part of a campaign to apprehend illegal immigrants, police said yesterday.

The immigrants were working for monthly wages that ranged from Dh1,200 to Dh1,500, officers said.

The investor has been charged with employing illegal immigrants.

The workers have each been charged with illegally entering the country and working without a sponsor.

Under the law, employing or harbouring illegal immigrants is punishable by a minimum of two months imprisonment and a fine of Dh100,000.

Owners of companies that employ workers who they do not sponsor face a Dh50,000 fine.

The arrests were part of a wider federal plan to focus on illegal immigration.

Earlier, three men were arrested in Sharjah under suspicion of housing 31 illegal immigrants.

Authorities in Abu Dhabi are trying to involve citizens in a campaign dubbed “sahem” – participate – and have set up a 24-hour hotline for people to report suspected illegal immigrants.

Police said 208 people, both immigrants and employers, have been arrested in recent days as part of the campaign.

Maj Gen Nasser al Minhali, acting director of the Naturalisation and Residency Department, said offenders who threatened the “safety of the people” would face harsh punishment.

Farida Siddiqui, an Abu Dhabi-based social worker who often meets labourers, said it was important that the arrests of illegal immigrants focused on the people who brought them to the country, with more “lenient” measures for the workers.

“Back home, these workers are very gullible,” said Ms Siddiqui. “Because of poverty, they borrow money, pay agents and come here thinking it’s a gold mine.”

Ms Siddiqui said such workers should be offered amnesty and small money grants, with the Government looking at cases to determine if there is a way they could get their money back, since many left behind poverty-stricken, uneducated families in order to support them.

kshaheen@thenational.ae