30,000 ILLEGALS NABBED THIS YEAR
More than 1,000 employers detained for hiring them, says Immigration Dept
THE Immigration Department detained more than 30,000 illegal immigrants from Jan 1 until yesterday, its directorgeneral, Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali, said.
He said more than 1,000 employers were also nabbed for hiring or harbouring the illegals in the same period.
“The detentions were the result of more than 10,000 operations carried out nationwide, with more than 100,000 foreigners examined.
“(The department) gave illegal immigrants the opportunity to surrender themselves voluntarily through the 3+1 programme, which ended on Aug 30.
“In addition, we implemented the Rehiring Programme, which was terminated on June 30. However, we found many did not adhere to the procedures,” he said after Op Mega here yesterday.
Mustafar said despite numerous operations carried out, there were still many illegal immigrants.
“Although we have introduced several programmes, many refuse to surrender.
“After the Rehiring Programme, we implemented Op Mega 3.0 and from the hundreds of operations that we conducted, we arrested more than 1,000 illegals out of more than 7,000 who were inspected.
“We do not want to compromise on the issue of illegal immigrants because many problems arise from them, such as health issues and drug abuse,” he said.
On the operation carried out in Sepanggar and Kota Kinabalu from midnight to 4am yesterday, Mustafar said 58 illegal immigrants were detained.
“This operation will continue throughout the country. We want our country to be free of illegal immigrants.”