Egyptian Man Deported After Overstaying And Running Out Of Money In Bali

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Immigration teams in Bali have deported an Egyptian man after he overstayed his visa by over 2-years. The Egyptian citizen, reported in the local press only by his initials KMHHM, is a 37-year-old man who is thought to be married to an Indonesian woman living in Bali. 

Reports share how KMHHM arrived in Bali on February 2nd, 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions came into place. He arrived in Indonesia on a Visa Arrival, valid for 30-days with the possibility to extend to 60-days. During the height of the first major lockdown, the Indonesian government waived visa extensions for travelers who could not return home or chose not to leave the country.

This was partly so that immigration offices could remain closed during lockdown. Though it was in 2021 that the waiver program was bought to a close, and visitors in Indonesia were given plenty of notice and information about what their next steps should be to either leave or renew and transfer their visas.

It is believed that KMHHM arrived in Bali in February 2020 for a vacation. Local newspaper RadarBali has said that he transferred onto a social visa with onshore sponsorship from his Indonesian wife on February 24th, 2021. This permitted him to stay in Indonesia until the middle of June 2021 after successive extensions. 

However, by the time the middle of June 2021 came around KHMMH reportedly had no money for a ticket home, nor to arrange a new visa. He handed himself into the Denpasar Immigration Office on 22nd December 2021. 

The Head of the Bali Ministry of Law and Human Rights Regional Office, Anggiat Napitupulu, told local reporters that ‘“KMHHM admitted that they did not have the money to buy tickets. The officer stated that the person concerned had overstayed for more than 60 days’ which means that an official deportation case was opened, since he had no money to pay a fine, nor for a ticket out of Bali.

In light of this KMHHM was detained at the Denpasar Immigration Detention Centre until his deportation this week. After a 7-month stint at the Immigration Detention Centre, KMHHM boarded a plane home this week. The Head of the Denpasar Immigration Detention Centre, Babay Baenullah, said ‘After the administration was ready, we finally deported KMHHM by first doing a PCR test with negative results’.

KHMMH boarded a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Bali to Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta on the 18th of July. He was closely monitored during his layover in the Indonesian capital and boarded his connecting flight to Cairo later in the day. He has now been blacklisted from Indonesia and been added to the deterrence list by the Directorate General of Immigration in Indonesia. 

Earlier in July Bali’s Immigration teams detained a German woman, Daniela Jeromin, after she was found hiding out in an abandoned building in Badung Regency. It is also believed that she too ran out of money during her time in Bali and had no funds to leave the country.

According to reports at the time, Daniela Jeromin was uncooperative with the Bali Police and the Immigration department which is why she was taken into custody. She was initially taken to the Denpasar Immigration Offices before being transferred to the Denpasar Immigration Detention Centre awaiting the lengthy deportation process to begin.

Bali takes visa overstays very seriously. It is illegal to overstay a visa and the consequences can be huge. If the daily fine of IDR 1,000,000 per day of overstay cannot be paid travelers will be detained by the immigration authorities. If the overstays over of 60-days are considered a criminal offense and require a formal deportation process. Immigration authorities reserve the right to blacklist overstaying visitors for any length of overstay.