Illegal in Dubai and nowhere to go: Nurse, husband and kids face dark future

Dubai: A debt-laden Filipina nurse, her husband and their two young children living illegally in Dubai for three years said they are ready to hand themselves in.

“We’re tired of hiding,” said Marisol Valdez, 39, a Filipina from La Union. “We don’t want to burden the people who help us.”

She planned to surrender to immigration authorities soon, taking seven-month-old Mauri, leaving their two-year-old Raymar with her husband Vincent, who also plans to turn himself in later.

“It’s been three years of nightmare. It can’t get any worse,” said Marisol in the flat of their reluctant hosts in Deira.

They survive by taking turns at odd jobs: She worked as an illegal housemaid or pressing clothes for Dh30 an hour. Her husband Vincent, 37, worked as a mover or an illegal cabbie.

Vincent, who holds a degree as a merchant mariner, worked in Dubai as a salesman until April 2010 when his shift to a higher-paying job was botched over an unpaid credit card, which Vincent claims he already closed in 2006.

“I was asked to pay Dh18,000, though my credit limit was only Dh2,000.”

Vincent earned Dh2,100 in his last job. He settled with the bank’s credit recovery agent by coughing up Dh4,500, paid for by a friend.

Marisol was jailed for over a month from December 25, 2012 over bounced cheques. She was released on January 28, 2012, a few days before the end of the amnesty.

The couple said they had lost their chance to use the amnesty and are appealing for help and leniency. “We missed the amnesty because of a birth certificate issue with one of our two children. I was still in jail till a few days before the deadline. We missed the deadline literally by just 30 minutes on February 3,” she said.

When times were good, she worked at a leading hospital in Dubai before a Dubai developer hired her for Dh8,000 a month. She worked for just four months with the developer because a bounced-cheque case prevented her from gettin g a fresh visa.

Their Dubai woes started in 2008 when an Asian man who sublet a Satwa room to them for Dh4,500 lodged a complaint against Marisol over bounced cheques. “There’s greed all around. The landlord held on to my rental cheques though our agreement was for him to return them against cash payments of Dh4,500 each month. He denied that the signatures on the receipts his collector issued to us were his.”

Forced to pay double, Marisol borrowed from a lender at 10 per cent a month. “The principal (Dh15,000) stayed the same until it was paid in full,” she said. By then, they were living on credit. Marisol now faces cases for bounced cheques worth Dh10,000 over an unpaid credit card.