KENINGAU: The police here yesterday strongly denied that the district is swarmed with illegal immigrants.
“The report that illegal immigrants are flooding the district as reported by a national media recently is not true,” said district police chief Deputy Superintendent Zahari Mohamed in press conference at his office here.
He was commenting on a recent newspaper report which claimed that illegal immigrants were flooding this district.
He said the public did not know the real definition of illegal immigrants until the Bugis and Filipinos were considered as illegals but many of them have legal documents such as Mykad, passport and IMM13.
He said those who possessed valid documents would be released after inspection done during the various operations conducted by the police, such as the weekly crime prevention and the integrated operations carried out with the federal special task force.
According to him the police conduct regular operations twice a month, apart from the integrated operations launched once every three months. The police also have crime prevention operations that involve arresting illegal immigrants apart from operations based on information received from members of the public.
Zahari said police MPVs were also carrying out operations to spot checks on illegal immigrants.
“ From January to September, 17 regular operations were carried out by the police. This does not include other operations such as crime prevention, weekly operations that are carried out twice, integrated operation and operation made by the police MPVs,” he said.
He also said the police have a committee to handle illegal immigrants which have started operations a month ago.
“The community must understand the term, ‘illegal immigrants’. Only those that do not possess any valid document are illegal immigrants,” he said.
He said the statistics on illegal immigrants arrested in police operations during the first nine months this year totalled 371 people and from the total, 129 were Filipinos, 230 Indonesians and 12 other races.
According to him, from the total, 60 Filipinos and 62 Indonesians were referred to the Immigration Department for further action.
Zahari advised community leaders to give accurate information to the police on illegal immigrants found in their area so that action to arrest them could be done.
He however believed there was no entry of illegal immigrants from outside as those checked had valid documents.
“Those with suspicious documents would be referred to the National Registration Department and Immigration Department for confirmation,” he said.
“The illegal immigrant problem in this district is under control,” he said.