THE Immigration Department detained 30,000 illegal immigrants nationwide from January 1 till yesterday, its director-general Mustafar Ali said.

He said more than 1,000 employers were also detained during the period for employing or harbouring the illegals.

“The detentions are the result of more than 10,000 operations carried out nationwide with more than 100,000 foreigners examined.

“We (Immigration) gave illegal immigrants the opportunity to surrender themselves voluntarily through the 3+1 programme which ended on August 30.

“In addition, we implemented the Rehiring Programme which was terminated on June 30. However, we still find many do not adhere to the set procedures,” he said.

He was speaking to reporters after the Op Mega operation in Kota Kinabalu early today.

Mustafar said despite a large number of operations, many illegal immigrants were still located throughout the country.

“Although we have introduced several programmes, many still refuse to surrender, including employers. After the Rehiring Programme, we implemented Ops Mega 3.0 and from the hundreds of operations that we have conducted, we have arrested more than 1,000 illegals from more than 7,000 who were inspected.

“We do not want to compromise on the issue of illegal immigrants… because there are many other problems that will arise from this, for example, in relation to health issues and drug abuse,” he said. – Bernama, September 4, 2018.