The five illegal immigrants found sharing a single room at Taman Far East during the operation conducted by the Immigration Department.
The 12 women and five men who were caught in a double-storey semi-detached house at Taman Far East being detained and taken to the Immigration Department office for further investigation.
Illegal immigrants being handcuffed after being detained during yesterday’s operation.
KOTA KINABALU: The authorities will speed up deportation of illegal immigrants from various temporary detention centres to avoid congestion.
Disclosing this yesterday, Sabah Immigration Department director Noor Alam Khan said the temporary detention centres including the State Prisosn Department were congested due to frequent operations carried out by the authorities to flush out illegal immigrants in Sabah.
“Due to the congestions, deportations will be carried out twice a week with about 150 to 200 illegal immigrants under detention to be deported to their country of origin,” he said.
According to Noor Alam, 8,223 illegal immigrants in Sabah have been deported to their respective counties since beginning of this year.
“This figure is about 22 percent (1,608) higher than the same period of last year and with the increasing number of elligal immigrants being detained, we have no choice but to speed up the deportation process,” he said.
He said from the 8,223 illegal immigrants deported, 6,304 were Filipinos, 1,806 Indonesians, 36 China nationals, 30 Vietnamese and 29 Pakistani, while the rest were from other countries.
Meanwhile, Noor Alam said Sabah would carry out the nationwide integrated crackdown on illegal immigrants which was launched on September 1 although most of the other states conducted the operations simultaneously on Sunday.
He said the integrated operations for Sabah would be carried out later than other states due to several unforeseen circumstances.
He said the Sabah Immigration Department had carried out its regular operations while preparing for the right time to proceed with the nationwide crackdown.
Meanwhile, on the regular operation to flush out illegal immigrants in the state capital, the department detained 20 people, including a child, in yesterday’s operation.
The operation, which began from 12.30am to 2.30am, were carried out at four locations, namely Kampung Salut in Telipok, Taman Seribaru in Menggatal, Taman Far East in Lintas and Kg Likas.
Three women and a child were detained at Kg Salut for failure to provide any documents when Immigration enforcement personnel raided the village around 12.30am.
Immigration Enforcement personnel also detained 14 people, including nine women, in a double-storey semi-detached house at Taman Far East in Lintas.
The nine women were found in a master bedroom on the first floor while the five men were found sleeping in a single room.
All those detained were taken to the Immigration Department office for further investigation.