Immigration has arrested more than 2,000 illegal aliens, barred 38,000 people from leaving the country and rescued at least 500 migrant Filipino workers from suspected human trafficking syndicates from January to November this year, an official said Friday.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said since January, 1,836 illegal aliens and 421 foreign fugitives had been arrested in various operations throughout the country.
“There will be no letup in our drive against these illegal aliens. We will continue to go after them and deport them to their homelands,” Morente said.
Acting intelligence chief Fortunato Manahan Jr. said most of those arrested were Chinese nationals illegally staying and working in the country, and many of them had been engaged in cyber fraud activities and unauthorized online gaming operations.
The list includes the more than 500 illegal Chinese workers arrested in Pasay City in October, while more than 300 of their compatriots were rounded up in various establishments in Puerto Princesa City in September.
Only recently, 342 Chinese nationals were arrested in several floors of a condominium building in Bago Bantay, Quezon City, for operating a telecom scam and working without permits.
Manahan said it had been a busy year for Immigration agents assigned in the South as there had been more arrests of illegal aliens in Mindanao in 2019 than in previous years.
“Some of those we arrested were not only illegally working there. They were also suspected of involvement in terrorism while others were wanted fugitives,” he said.
The bureau says 38,233 Filipinos were offloaded from different ports in the country and most of them were stopped because they failed to comply with all of the requirements that would prove they were legitimate tourists and not “tourist workers,” a term used for undocumented Filipino workers disguised as tourists.
The bureau also arrested several high-profile foreign criminals, among them the alleged manager of the website Manga Mura that pirates the wildly popular comic books in Pasay City.
|Agents nabbed Hoshino, 28, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s Terminal 3 after the Japanese Embassy in Manila sought help from the agency in finding and arresting him.
BI intelligence Officer Bobby Raquepo, head of the bureau’s Fugitive Search Unit, said Tokyo Interpol was also involved in the apprehension of Hoshino who allegedly earned more than P1 billion worth of pirated comic books.
Immigration spokesman Dana Sandoval said the number of foreigners who arrived in the country also increased, and among those were workers and students.
She said around 13-million foreigners arrived in the Philippines this year, higher by at least 2 percent compared last year with the South Koreans topping the list followed by the Chinese.