KOTA KINABALU (BERNAMA) – A total of 3,118 Filipino illegal immigrants were deported this year by sea and air, said Sabah Immigration Department (Sabah JIM) director Datuk SH Sitti Saleha Habib Yusoff.
She said on Thursday, 652 illegal immigrants from the Philippines were repatriated through the JIM Sabah repatriation programme via Sandakan Port to Zamboanga City in the Philippines.
“The detainees, aged between two months and 76 years, were previously detained at Immigration depots in Papar, Sandakan and Tawau.
“The repatriation of the child detainees was done together with their parents or guardians by sea on the vessel MV Antonia 1,” she said in a statement yesterday.
She said all the illegal immigrants who were repatriated had committed various offences under the Immigration Act 1959/63 and Immigration Regulations 1963.
She also said that the frequency of the repatriation programme for Filipinos is subject to the cooperation of the Philippine embassy in speeding up the documentation process and then repatriating them to their country of origin.
