BALING: From next month, the Immigration Department will impose compounds on foreigners who overstay in the country for up to 90 days, says Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.
The Home Minister said the move aims to expedite the legal process by eliminating the need to open investigation papers and bring cases to court.
“When we impose a compound, it means the case is not prosecuted. Previously, all overstay cases required investigation papers to be opened and had to go through court proceedings.
“Now, there is a category where we impose compounds, specifically on those who overstay for no more than 90 days,” he said after launching the Immigration Department’s Kampung Angkat and Sekolah Angkat Madani programme at SK Rambong Pulai yesterday, Bernama reported.
He said for foreigners who overstay between one and 30 days, the compound is RM30 per day, up to a maximum of RM900.
For those who overstay between 31 and 60 days, they will face an automatic compound of RM1,000.
Foreigners who overstay between 61 and 90 days will be fined RM2,000.
“But if they overstay for more than 90 days, for example, nine years, an investigation paper will be opened for prosecution.”
Saifuddin Nasution said the new measure is expected to reduce the time needed to complete legal action from 14 days to just one day.
He said this enables faster repatriation of offenders and eases congestion at the department’s detention depots nationwide.
“This approach also allows foreigners who overstay due to reasonable circumstances to settle the matter quickly.”
He revealed that as of Aug 30, a total of 35,225 illegal immigrants had been detained for various offences nationwide this year.
He said the arrests were the result of 9,500 operations carried out by the department involving checks on 152,000 foreigners nationwide.
“A total of 36,557 foreigners have been deported to their countries of origin as of Aug 28.”
