In reply to a question from Bintulu Member of Parliament Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing Thursday, the ministry said that 2,554 operations had been carried out in the first five months of this year, which resulted in the arrest of 23,100 illegal immigrants, through this effort

“These are offenders who have overstayed in the country after the expiration of their visas and those who did not have the permit to stay in the country in the first place.”

The ministry also said that in the first four months of this year, fines totaling RM298,000 had also been imposed on the offenders from 2,058 cases brought to the courts.

“The second measure is the implementation of the Biometric System. The system stores the particulars of the offenders to ensure that they will not be able to return to this country upon deportation to their country of origin after serving their jail term.

The particulars of 69,183 offenders had been stored in the system from January to June 22 this year, Tiong was told

“The third is the setting up of 15 courts in the country to deal with these offences since last year. Until June 21, this year, court cases involving 7,981 illegal immigrants have been heard. More than 4,000 of the offenders have been jailed, 2,193 were given one to six strokes of the rotan, 59 fined and the rest - 1,412 - are pending.”

The ministry said the government also used television programmes to educate the people on problems arising from the crimes to let them understand the seriousness of the offences and how the people could help the government in solving the problems.

“The fifth measure is the setting up of a committee by the Cabinet to look into the problems. This committee has been studying the problems to find the solutions. So far, we have been successful in reducing the number.”

The ministry agreed that the illegal immigrant problems were sensitive and they were dealing with them with care.