There are presently more than 8000 illegal immigrants in Fiji, says Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua.
This number has doubled within one year as reports from 2023 showed that there were 4709 illegal immigrants in Fiji in January 2023.
He said there was no immigration enforcement agency within the Fiji Immigration Department, so they have to work with the Fiji Police Force when removing illegal immigrants.
“We have our own illegal immigrants, right now we have more than 8000 people who are overstaying,” he said.
“Illegal in that sense – people who have overstayed their visa. Some of them are students, some of them, yes, work (visa) like the Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis.
“They came here, and then they jumped from their old employer to the next one. Because we do not have an enforcement agency within Immigration, once we get information about someone who’s overstaying – is with somebody – that’s when we go in with the police, we raid, catch this guy, put him on the plane, and send them back home.”
Mr Tikoduadua said he signed prohibited immigrant uplift applications everyday for people “who are just overstaying their visa”.
“There is a process. If you come here to work or whatever, after you expired your visa, it does not necessarily mean that you cannot stay. The law allows you to appeal and you can ask, ‘OK, I would like to stay a little bit longer’.
“Or if they go to court, then we cannot touch them until the court allows us to remove them because there are laws to follow.
“The wheels of justice, they turn slowly.”
He said that Grace Road president Daniel Kim and two other Koreans have been in prison for nearly a year now because the law doesn’t allow immigration or police to remove him “until the court rules”.
