IMMIGRATION DEPT. GEAR UP FOR ILLEGAL MIGRANT WORKERS

■removes 129 overstaying foreign expatriates in January alone ■lau■ches new Hotline ‘0115-749999’ to inform about such expatriates

As many as 129 foreigners including several women who had engaged in employment while illegally remaining in the country, defying visa conditions, were removed by the Department of Immigration and Emigration last month.

The number of overstaying foreigners removed in January alone is about one fifth the number sent away last year, the Immigration sources said.

From January 1 to December 31, 2018, the investigation wing of the department had removed 638 foreign expatriates.

A senior official of the department’s investigating wing told Daily Mirror the group removed foreigners who were apprehended in December 2018 and January 2019.

The source disclosed that they were gearing up to tackle the illegal migrants menace and will launch the newly introduced Hotline ‘0115-749999’ tomorrow (5) and requested the public to call in to help them locate foreigners who were overstaying their visas.

The foreigners who were thus sent packing included 63 Indian nationals (all males), 35 Chinese nationals including one female, 28 female Thai nationals, two male Bangladeshi nationals and one Somali male.

Out of the lot, Indian and Chinese nationals were chiefly working on construction sites and various industrial factories whilst the Thai women were mostly nabbed from unlawful massage centres and spas, the sources said.

The official said that though a considerable number of persons sent home were skilled labourers in the industries of masonry and building construction, they had not followed proper rules when attempting to work here.

He said almost everyone that were sent away had arrived in the country on a 30-day initial tourist visa and had engaged in work, overstaying their visas, some for as long as six months.

In two recent detections conducted by the department’s investigation wing 24 Indian nationals who were overstaying their visas and were working in a timber manufacturing plant in Ingiriya were rounded up on January 25 while 49 more Indian nationals who overstayed their visas were found to be working at a factory in Matugama last Saturday (2).

The first lot had been included in the list of expatriates sent back home by end of January, whereas the second batch of 49 Indian nationals were being transferred to the Immigration and Emigration Department Detention Centre in Mirihana following an initial inquiry.

Their employer had been ordered to pay the dues and finalize the documentation and arrange return air tickets for the Indian nationals to be removed soon. Most of the arrested men were between the ages of 25 and 35, the sources said.

All these operations were carried out by the Investigation Unit on the instructions of Immigration and Emigration Controller General Nihal Ranasinghe, Controller Border and Visa Chaminda Hettiarachchi, Deputy Controller M. G. V. Kariyawasama, Assistant Controller S. A. J. Prasanna Kumara and Chief Immigration Officer C. M. Munasinghe.

Immigration Dept. requests the general public to provide them with information about such illegal migrant workers on their Tel. hotline-0115-749999.

All the removed expatriates had been black listed in the department’s data system including the one located at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA).