Relaxed visa policies lead to increase in illegal foreign workers: reports

There were 15,000 illegal aliens last year, 7,000 of them from Bangladesh and Nigeria, Nguyen Thi Mai Quynh, an immigration official, said quoting Ministry of Public Security data at a meeting Wednesday.

A foreigner works in Hanoi in October 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Ha Trang

Many overstayed and did not have money, and the police had to return some of them to their countries, Quynh, deputy head of the department for management of immigration, emigration and residence of foreigners, said.

This year there have been 24 instances of foreigners stealing other passengers’ belongings at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC, she said.

Some of the perpetrators were from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who had come to Vietnam to work illegally at the behest of compatriots, she added.

"The police have had to deal with many foreigners wandering around in cities without money to eat or return home."

She added that the country’s relaxed e-visa policy for tourists, increasing their stay duration from 30 to 90 days, have been taken advantage of by these illegal migrants.

She sought the collaboration of other government agencies to tackle illegal immigration.

The 2023 Vietnam Migration Profile report released in October said Vietnam is not only a country of origin for international migration but is also increasingly becoming a destination.

Offenders often communicate via social media, hide their identity and make payments under other people’s names to avoid detection by authorities, it said.