KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 (Bernama) — A total of 25,045 illegal immigrants were detained by People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela) members throughout the country last year, an increase of 8,244 over the previous year, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Tan Chai Ho said today.
He said that in the first quarter of this year alone, 9,691 were detained.
The majority of the detainees last year were from Indonesia (17,038), Myanmar (2,988) and India (1,206).
Most of them were held in Selangor (7,664), Kuala Lumpur (3,879), and Negeri Sembilan (2,798), he told reporters at the Parliament lobby here, Wednesday.
He also said that 186 employers had been prosecuted and 63 of them fined a total of RM1.05 million since the amendments to the Immigration Act to provide for imprisonment and whipping for errant employers came into force in August 2002.
