More than 20,000 illegal immigrants identified during 7,975 immigration operations since January, according to the Minister of the Interior

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 76,477 foreigners have been screened during immigration enforcement operations in hotspots since January this year, said Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

“From January to today, we have carried out 7,975 operations in sensitive areas.

“A total of 76,477 foreigners were checked and 20,207 had no documents with them,” the Interior Minister said while responding to a question posed by Dr. Nik Muhammad Zawawi Salleh (PN-Pasir Puteh) in Dewan Rakyat Wednesday June 26. .

On illegal migrant hotspots, Saifuddin said the Immigration Department has profiled 224 hotspots in the country based on information gleaned over several years.

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He added that 456 employers were also arrested during the operations for illegally bringing in foreign workers.

He said the 20,207 people were repatriated to their respective countries of origin after the documents were provided by their respective embassies.

He said the country's immigration depots could hold a total of 19,000 detainees and currently only house 13,000.

Saifuddin also said that a total of 86,900 illegal migrant workers were also repatriated after voluntarily surrendering to immigration authorities.

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He said most of those sent back to their home countries were from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

“A total of 79,231 illegal immigrants have voluntarily surrendered to date,” he said.

He said illegal immigrants who surrendered to authorities would be jailed before being repatriated and that some RM40,000 in the compounds had been collected.

Meanwhile, Saifuddin disputed Nik Muhammad's claim that there were six million undocumented foreign workers in the country in 2022, based on a study carried out by the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) by an individual named Nixon.

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Saifuddin said he had checked with the KRI, which said they had not conducted such a study nor were they aware of the individual named by Nik Muhammad.

Regarding the visa liberalization plan, Saifuddin said that as of January 1 this year, a total of 950,000 Chinese tourists and 443,000 Indian tourists had entered the country since the 30-day visa-free entry was offered to both countries.

Visa-free entry for visitors from China and India came into effect on December 1 last year and has been extended until December 31 this year.

Based on immigration data, it said a total of 40 million tourists entered the country between January last year and April this year.

Of this number, he added that 30 million entered the country via Johor and KL International Airport.