PHL deported over 1,500 foreigners in 2017 — Immigration bureau

More than 1,500 foreigners were deported last year for violating Philippine immigration laws, nearly four times higher than those sent back to their home countries in 2016, according to the Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Monday.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said 1,508 foreigners were deported in 2017 for committing acts inimical to the national interest and which posed a risk to public safety, up from only about 400 in 2016.

Of the 1,508 foreigners, 232 were wanted for serious crimes in their homelands and who hid in the Philippines to evade prosecution or service of sentence.

Immigration offenses of the other deportees included overstaying, working without permit, being undocumented, and undesirability.

Data from the BI legal division show that Chinese nationals topped the list of deportees at 1,248, followed by 115 South Koreans, 33 Indians, 29 Americans, 13 Vietnamese, and 11 Japanese.

Majority of the deportees were Chinese nationals arrested in 2016 at the Fontana Hotel in Clark, Pampanga for allegedly engaging in illegal online gaming operations.

Morente described the Nov. 24, 2016 Fontana raid as the biggest single mass arrest of foreigners in the bureau’s history wherein some 1,300 Chinese workers were rounded up by joint operatives of the BI and PNP’s special action force. — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News