In the beginning of October 2017, 179 NYU Abu Dhabi students received an SMS saying that their Emirates ID applications had been cancelled. The SMS was the last of a number of text messages, prompting students to complete their applications to avoid cancellations. However, the NYUAD Immigration and Employee Relocation Services oversaw completing the applications, and students were told not to act.

The Emirates ID applications were re-submitted on Oct. 31 for all the students who have not yet received them. “179 applications were deactivated and ... now the students should already start to receive messages saying that [their] application is under process,” said Mohammad Ramahi, Director of Immigration and Employee Relocation Services.

“Given that now the issue has been resolved, it should take up to three weeks to receive the cards,” added Al Mutaz Bellah Awad, Immigration Services Specialist in the Immigration and Employee Relocation Services.

According to Ramahi, the Emirates ID applications were deactivated, not denied, due to a mistake in the UAE Immigration Department. Instead of the intended one-year visas, some students were instead given two- and three-year visas, but their Emirates ID applications did not match this. Since both visas and Emirates IDs cost money, outstanding fees for the second and third years on their visas were not paid on the Emirates ID applications and therefore the IDs were temporarily deactivated. Only students who received two- and three-year visas should have been affected by the deactivation.

“The university really needs to improve its efficiency regarding immigration, especially given that the student body will only increase in size over time. I don’t see any point in getting my Emirates ID the last four weeks of the semester before I study away for eight months,” said Sergiy Stupak, Class of 2020.

Ramahi highlighted the new cooperation with a third party company, twofour54, who handled the submission of 921 applications this year, as a complication in the process. This cooperation is new this year, and it is also the first time that these issues have occurred in the application process.

Employees of Immigration and Employee Relocation Services also pointed out that many Emirates IDs are ready to be picked up by NYUAD students, who have ignored, overseen or forgotten emails notifying them.