KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 19 — Amid a series of controversial deportations out of 29,000 visitors turned away upon arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) this year, the Immigration Department maintains tough measures are needed to rid Malaysia of its taint as a human trafficking hub.

The country’s gatekeepers have come under intense public fire following a recent assault and theft claim by a Moroccan graduate student, but the department’s KLIA chief Sarbini Hussein believes the flak comes with its increased vigilance to keep out potential human trafficking victims and those hoping to slip through the cracks from among millions of arrivals annually.

An average of 79 people are turned away daily out of the thousands who arrive at the country’s main gateways in KLIA and the low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) in Sepang, Sarbaini said. 

He foresees that the immigration’s trend to deny entry—or “No To Land” (NTL) in airport lingo—which totalled some 29,000 people as November, will soar next year, as arrivals are expected to far surpass the 22 million recorded in the first half of 2013.

“Last year, we identified 24,000 NTLs, but this is a much higher figure compared to just 9,000 NTLs in 2009,” he told The Malay Mail Online in an interview yesterday.

Sarbini said while this was due in part to increased surveillance by the department, they have also detected increasing syndicate activity in bringing in illegal workers who mostly fly in from South Asia, and to a lesser extent Indonesia and the Philippines.

“We work on the premise of prevention of human trafficking and violations of the Immigration Act, especially in dealing with foreign worker syndicates,” he said.

The Immigration Department was brought front and centre when the government launched an ambitious plan to snuff out people smuggling and human trafficking activities.

The department was tasked with not only creating a database of immigrants in the country but also to clamp down on the movement of potential human trafficking victims at the country’s various entry points.

The plan was part of the wider Government Transformation Programme, the brainchild of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and launched in 2010.

The department, however, has come under heavy criticism in several cases involving either high-profile deportees or NTLs who ended up living out of the airport for weeks on end until they were eventually sent home.

The latest controversy came about after Zakaria Smini, 26, claimed last week he was assaulted and had his watch stolen by immigration officers while he was confined to a holding room for three days before being deported back to Morocco.

Smini, a former student at a college here, admitted that he had been blacklisted for overstaying his student visa by a month last year, but blamed it on slow processing by the Immigration Department.

Immigration director-general Datuk Alias Ahmad has since denied the Moroccan’s charges, claiming instead that Smini had been “rude”, “disruptive” and “provoked” officers who were on duty.

Smini’s case came not too long after the denial of entry of Kenyan man John Kimani Ngure late last October, who was turned away on the excuse that he did not have enough cash to stay in Malaysia for 12 days.

In July, the plight of 22-year-old Palestinian Ahmed Kanan grabbed headlines after word got out that he had been living out of KLIA’s main terminal for over 50 days due to visa issues. He was also blacklisted by Malaysian authorities for a prior offence of overstaying.

Further back in February, the country risked a diplomatic row when the department deported Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon, who claimed he was blacklisted for allegedly being a threat to Malaysia’s security.

Sarbini said the 977 officers stationed at both the main terminal and LCCT are duty bound to adhere to strict immigration rules when dealing with visitors other than those granted valid social visas, especially when visitors’ names register hits on their suspects list – a list that covers categories ranging from terrorists to overstayers, as in the cases of Smini and Kanan.

He explained that they also have monitoring teams who are trained to look out for tell-tale signs that an individual may not be a genuine tourist, taking into account their dressing and body language and also suspicious behaviour such as hesitating to approach the immigration counter, among other things.

“We would also turn away those who clearly don’t have the means to support themselves over the duration of their stay here, or those we have strong suspicions of being involved in illegal activities such as prostitution and those we believe could impact the nation’s security,” he said.

The KLIA immigration boss stressed that their role is only for prevention and not enforcement, noting that they are not authorised to detain individuals but instead can only place NTLs in a holding room until the airline that brought them in can arrange to send them back to their point of origin.

“Personally, I hope to see a decrease in the number of NTLs next year. I advise potential tourists to make sure they have ample funds on hand, confirmed return tickets and confirmed accomodation before flying in,” he said.