KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 76,477 foreigners were checked during immigration enforcement operations at hotspots since January this year, says Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

"From January till today, we have carried out 7,975 operations in hotspot locations.

"A total of 76,477 foreigners were checked and 20,207 did not have any documents on them," the Home Minister said when answering a question raised by Datuk Dr Nik Muhammad Zawawi Salleh (PN-Pasir Puteh) in Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (June 26).

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

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

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

He said that the immigration depots in the country could handle a total of 19,000 detainees and are currently housing only 13,000 detainees.

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

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

"To date, a total of 79,231 illegals have voluntarily surrendered themselves," he said.

He said illegals surrendering themselves to the authorities would be compounded before being repatriated and some RM40,000 in compounds have been collected.

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

Saifuddin said he had checked with KRI, which stated that they did not carry any such study or knew the individual named by Nik Muhammad.

On the visa liberalisation plan, Saifuddin said that as of Jan 1 this year, a total of 950,000 tourists from China and 443,000 tourists from India has entered into the country since the 30-day visa free entry was offered to both nations.

The visa free entry for visitors from China and India came into effect on Dec 1 last year and has been extended till Dec 31 this year.

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

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

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/06/26/more-than-20000-illegals-detected-in-7975-immigration-ops-since-january-says-home-minister