SANDAKAN: The Sandakan Immigration depot is housing more than 1,500 undocumented migrants, exceeding its maximum capacity of 1,200, as enforcement operations continue across Sabah.
State Immigration director Datuk Sh Sitti Saleha Habib Yussof said the overcrowding has put great pressure on resources and raised safety concerns.
“We’re facing serious challenges with congestion. The Sandakan depot alone has exceeded its limit, and there’s still a continuous flow of detainees from ongoing operations,” she told a press conference at the depot here on Friday (July 25).
Of the detainees currently at the Sandakan depot, 1,273 are Filipinos and 266 are Indonesians.
The Sandakan facility is one of four such depots across Sabah, now collectively housing 5,181 detainees – 4,157 Filipinos and 893 Indonesians – out of a total capacity of 7,000.
Depot conditions are also deteriorating, with some blocks in Sandakan closed for maintenance.
Only six to seven blocks remain operational, many of which have not been upgraded since 2010.
To ease the overcrowding, Sitti Saleha said some detainees from Sandakan will be transferred to the Tawau depot, where the number of detainees is expected to drop in the coming week.
She urged the Philippine and Indonesian embassies to expedite the issuance of travel documents, adding that delays were hampering repatriation efforts and causing long detention periods.
“For example, the last repatriation of Indonesians was in March. Many of them have now been stuck here for over four months.
“As long as they are not issued travel documents, they will remain in the depot,” she added.
She explained that the Philippine Embassy, based in Kuala Lumpur, has no embassy or consulate in Sabah, making coordination slower, while Indonesia maintains consulates in Kota Kinabalu and Tawau.
Meanwhile, in a recent large-scale operation involving 54 personnel from Lahad Datu, Ranau, Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu, a total of 212 individuals were screened, resulting in 125 arrests for suspected offences under the Immigration Act 1959/63 and the Passport Act 1966.
The detainees are being held at the Sandakan depot for investigation.
Sitti Saleha said the operations have been targeting squatter settlements, based on public complaints.
She added that enforcement has also extended to employers, with 80 across the state prosecuted to date for hiring undocumented migrants and failing to comply with procedures.
