Immigration Department

The Immigration Department has limited resources to deal with visa-over stayers.

This was revealed by Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua, who says despite this challenge, the Department will go after those who choose to exceed their stay deliberately and deal with them decisively.

“We will take the effort to go out and look for them and find out what has made them stay longer, you’ll be surprised by the kind of applications that come to my office, from people everywhere, permits for different categories, whether they come here to study or research, work.”

Earlier this year, Tikoduadua revealed that the majority of visitor over-stayers are tertiary students from the Pacific region.

He adds that Fiji, as the Pacific hub for education, work, training and tourism, faces immigration challenges with regular migrants being visa over-stayers.

Tikoduadua says while many people exceed their period of approved stay, they also have the avenue to apply to continue to stay beyond, but the onus is on them to reach out to the Ministry.