THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Monday reported that a total of 1,508 foreign nationals were deported in 2017 for committing various offenses relating to the country’s immigration laws.
The figure, according to Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente, was nearly four times higher compared to the number of deportation in 2016, when only about 400 foreigners were sent home.
Morente also noted that more than two-thirds, or 1,145, of the deportees were Chinese nationals arrested in 2016 at the Fontana Hotel in Clark, Pampanga, for allegedly engaging in illegal online-gaming operations.
The Fontana raid was the single biggest mass arrest of aliens in the bureau’s history, wherein some 1,300 Chinese workers were rounded up by joint operatives of the BI and Special Action Force.
Morente added the aliens were deported pursuant to summary deportation orders issued against them by the Board of Commissioners, which found them guilty of committing acts inimical to the national interest and which posed a risk to public safety.
Out of the 1,508 foreigners sent home, Morente said 232 were fugitives wanted for serious crimes in their homelands and who hid in the Philippines to evade prosecution or service of sentence.
Among the offenses committed by the deportees were overstaying, working without permit, being undocumented and undesirability.
Lawyer Arvin Santos, BI Legal Division chief, also bared that the BI twice implemented mass deportation of aliens last year, the first in the bureau’s history.
Santos further reported that the Chinese nationals topped the list of 2017 deportees at 1,248, followed by Koreans, 115; Indians, 33; Americans, 29; Vietnamese, 13, and Japanese, 11.