Number of illegal foreign workers arrested doubles

The number of foreigners, mostly Chinese, who were arrested by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) so far this year rose 130 percent as the agency ramped up its campaign against aliens illegally working in the country.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said that since January, 1,836 foreigners had been arrested by the BI intelligence division, while 421 had been apprehended by its fugitive search unit.

In 2018, the two divisions arrested a total of 800.

Online gaming, cyberfraud

For the second year in a row, Chinese nationals topped the list of those arrested, the majority of whom were found to be working in unauthorized online gaming operations or engaged in cyberfraud activities.Last week, immigration personnel arrested in Quezon City 342 Chinese workers who were hired by a company believed to be engaged in a telecom scam. Their arrest was on top of the more than 800 illegal Chinese workers rounded up in two operations in Pasay City and Palawan in October and September.

“There will be no letup in our drive against these illegal aliens, We will continue to go after them and deport them back to their homelands,” Morente said in a statement on Friday.

Immigration agents also arrested a number of Indians in Mindanao who were reported to have been engaged in usurious moneylending and other nationalities suspected of having ties with terror groups. —JOVIC YEE