PUTRAJAYA: The Immigration Department detained 1,224 illegal immigrants in 473 operations under Op Mega 3.0 conducted nationwide since yesterday.
Its director-general, Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali, said 399 Bangladeshi nationals were detained, followed by Indonesia (164), the Philipines (157), Myanmar (109), Thailand (43) and Vietnam (41).
He said of the total, 922 and 253 were men and women, respectively, while the remaining 49 were children.
“They were detained for various offences including forgery of travel documents. Also detained were 15 employers.
“Op Mega 3.0 was conducted beginning yesterday after the deadline for the illegal immigrants’ rehiring programme on June 30.
“A total of 744,942 illegal immigrants and 83,919 employers have registered with the programme.
“As at June 30, the department has processed documents submitted by 364,966 of them,” he told reporters after attending the department’s monthly assembly today.
Mustafar said a total of 117,448 illegal immigrants have returned home between Jan 1 and July 1 through the voluntary surrender programme (3+1 programme).
“Through the 3+1 programme, they were able to return to their countries through the legal and proper channel.
“The public is urged to forward any relevant information to the department,” he said.
He said there were currently 13 depots housing illegal immigrants nationwide with an average monthly operation cost of RM25 million.
“It is a huge expenditure. The fund could have been used for other purposes like the education development,” he added.
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