Tahuna Immigration to tightly supervise foreigners in Sangihe Islands

The Class II Immigration Office of Tahuna in North Sulawesi continues to monitor foreigners entering the Sangihe Islands area.

"We continue to increase supervision of foreigners who enter the Sangihe islands," said the head of Tahuna's Immigration office James S.J. Sembel here Thursday.

According to him, supervision was carried out through routine patrols by immigration officers as well as by the Foreigners Monitoring Team which had been established upto the sub-district.

"The team has been established in every sub-district in Sangihe to assist the immigration office in supervising foreigners," he said.

The team in the sub-district consists of elements from the sub-district administration and personnel of the police as well as the Indonesian military (TNI) which have the duty to supervise and report to the Immigration Office when they find out there are foreigners in their territory.

"The existence of the sub-district team is only limited to giving reports to immigration rather than taking actions," he said.

Because he said, prosecution of foreigners was the authority of the Immigration officer.

During 2017 there were 90 foreign nationals who were secured and returned to their home countries because they did not have legal documents to be in Indonesia.

"For the past two years, we have repatriated 90 foreign nationals through Manado, who were found to have no legal documents in the territory of Indonesia," he said.

He also hoped that community participation would be able to provide reports to immigration officials when they find out there are foreigners.

"We sincerely hope that community participation in helping the team by giving a report to the team and immigration officers about the presence of foreigners, to check immigration documents," he said.