Malawi intensifies fight against illegal immigration
The Immigration Department has said it deported about 4,000 illegal immigrants against over 9,000 it arrested in the year.
Chief Immigration Officer, Masauko Medi, said this on Tuesday when Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security Atupele Muluzi toured the Immigration Department in Blantyre.
“We conducted 30 sweeping operations where 9,789 illegal immigrants were arrested out of which 4,237 have been deported. “Most of the illegal immigrants are those from the horn of Africa and the great lakes region such as Somalia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” he said.
Currently, the department deports illegal immigrants to the next nearest border, which makes it easy for them to return to Malawi.
Meanwhile, Muluzi said they expect the reforms the department is implementing to come with tangible changes in the department.
Among the reforms are the rolling out of an integrated border control system and developing a Migration and Citizenship Policy scheduled for next year. Muluzi said they expect the reforms to help ease work at the department.
“Malawi has a history of setting policy with limited follow through on tangible implementation and delivery of results. Government is focused on correcting this anomaly through reforms in immigration.
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