170 foreigners await deportation in detention center
170 foreigners await deportation in detention center
JAKARTA (JP): One hundred and seventy foreigners whose
deportation has been delayed because they do not have immigration
documents are crammed into a detention center designed for 75
people in Kalideres, West Jakarta, an official said yesterday.
Spokesman for the immigration Directorate General Mursanudin
Ghani said some had been in detention for three years at the
holding camp on Jl. Peta Selatan, Kalideres.
A U.S. citizen named James Robert Shower, and a Chinese
national Coe A Jien have lived in the center since 1995. Neither
were recognized by their embassies, he said.
"We have no funds to deport the foreigners. Under Immigration
Law we are obliged to deport them, but the law says nothing about
who should fund the operation," Ghani told The Jakarta Post.
The immigration office must provide detainees with meals, he
said. By law the meal must consist of rice, vegetable and fish.
Up to four people or one family live in every room in the
center, he added.
The overcrowding is compounded by other provinces across
Indonesia sending illegal aliens to the center because they do
not have local facilities, Ghani explained.
He said the immigration office planned to build a national
detention center for illegal immigrants in the near future.
He said most of those currently detained came from developing
countries such as Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Bangladesh
and the People's Republic of China.
They were arrested for violating immigration regulations, such
as overstaying their visa and not having the correct immigration
documents.
He said his office had contacted the relevant embassies.
Many of the foreigners, who claimed their passports were
missing, were not recognized as citizens by the embassies of
countries to which they claimed an allegiance, Ghani said.
He said some of those detained were awaiting money from
relatives contacted through their embassies.
Many of the foreigners stranded in Jakarta were on their way
to a third country in search of employment.
Immigration officers in Jakarta and Tangerang recently
arrested dozens of Sri Lankans who planned to attempt to
illegally enter Canada and Australia.
Ghani said the foreigners were not under police detention and
were therefore not closely guarded, except those formerly
involved in criminal activities.
West Jakarta District Court indicted a 46-year-old Pakistani
man on Wednesday for selling heroin at the center. The defendant,
Muhammad Khaled Mahmood, has lived in the center for two years.
Ghani said Mahmood would be returned to the center after
completing his prison term, if found guilty. (jun)