Immigration Department to continue raids on illegal settlements

SHAH ALAM - The Immigration Department (JIM) will continue to raid illegal setllements housing illegal immigrants (PATI).

Its Director General Datuk Seri Khairul Dzaimee Daud said the department is taking the issue seriously as it can cause various problems and have negaive impact to the surrounding areas.

"The immigration department will conduct a follow up operation after an illegal settlement was raided in a joint operation in Nilai Springs Negeri Sembilan.

"Operations to capture PATI are always conducted by the immigration department, including inspecting foreign immigrants who hold the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card," he told Sinar on Saturday.

Khairul said a total of 22,560 PATI were arrested, last year, across the country for various offences.

He said the highest number of PATI detained were those from Indonesia ( 9,709), followed by Myanmar (3,627), Bangladesh (2,845), Thailand (1,494), India (1,462), Philippines(1,164), Pakistan (655), Nepal (437), Cambodia (367), Vietnam (342) and the remainder were from other countries.

"We had also arrested a total of 343 employers for investigation for protecting and employing these illegal immigrants," he said.

He added that throughout last year, the immigration had reviewed 5,561 UNHCR card holders.

"JIM will also take strict action on UHCR card holders who were found guilty of violating any laws in the country," he explained.

He stressed that as a group of people who were granted permission to temporarily reside here,they should respect Malaysia's law and its local community.

"We will ship them out if they are found guilty by the court," he said.

On Wednesday, Sinar reported an operation by the Negeri Sembilan Immigration department which raided an illegal settlement housing immigrants without valid documents.

A total of 67 illegai immigrants had been detained consisting of 11 men, 20 women, 20 boys and 16 girls, aged between two months to 72 years old.

The raid was conducted based on the result of surveillance and intelligence gathering for about a month, the illegal settlement even had a makeshift school with learning syllabus from a neighbouring country's education system. It was even equipped with a few units of generators as a source for electricity