KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 — The Sabah Immigration Department has deported a total of 9,938 illegal immigrants from four detention depots in the state to their countries of origin in the period from 2021 to March 27.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Shamsul Anuar Nasarah said it involved a total of 2,497 illegal immigrants in 2021; 5,450 in 2022 and 1,991 illegal immigrants for the period January 1 to March 27 this year.
“The Home Ministry (KDN) is stepping up efforts to deport detainees to their countries of origin by holding regular negotiations with the Philippine and Indonesian embassies to speed up the process of repatriating detainees to their countries of origin,” he said during the question-and-answer session at the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was replying to a question from Lo Su Fui (GRS-Tawau) who wanted to know what action had been taken against illegal immigrants in Sabah, especially in Tawau, who were causing a lot of social and security problems that caused worry among the local residents.
Shamsul Anuar said Sabah Immigration Department statistics up to March 27 showed that there were 4,655 illegal immigrants detained at four immigration depots in Sabah, namely in Papar, Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan and Tawau.
He said, based on enforcement activities involving business premises and enterprises, a total of 1,076 enforcement operations were carried out with the arrest of 1,881 illegal immigrants and 45 employers throughout 2021.
In 2022, the Sabah Immigration Department had also carried out 700 enforcement operations involving 1,437 arrests of illegal immigrants and 14 employers for various immigration offences, he said.
“A total of 265 operations, 487 arrests, including two employers and 6,405 inspections were made so far this year,” he said.
He said KDN takes a serious view of the problem which requires a continuous eradication strategy and is currently refining a more comprehensive and thorough Strategic Plan for enforcement against Illegal Immigrants.
