A recent set of figures released by the Immigration Department of Australia revealed that over 64,000 people are living in Australia illegally including many cases of over-staying. These unlawful non-citizens include those who overstayed in the country for over a period of two to three years. The Daily Mail reported that currently, a person has managed to dodge the immigration department for over 40 years now. In fact, it is being considered that he might be dead by now.
Doing an analysis upon the nationality who is the worst offender in these cases, there is a total of more than 9,440 citizens of Malaysian nationality who fall under the category of illegal citizens. China is the second highest offender with a total of 6,500 citizens who overstayed in Australia. These numbers are closely followed by the US and UK citizens.
Among these illegal citizens, 70 percent have expired visitor visas and 15 percent have expired student visas. A total of 3 per cent has got expired working holiday visa. An official from Immigration and Border Protection said that they are planning to use “targeted field compliance” in order to catch the offenders. Another spokesperson, Peter Dutton said that the numbers outlined do not even begin to show the actual scenario. These numbers are just less than even one percent of the 6.5 million temporary entrants to Australia each year. Some immigrants in this overstay only for a few days.
Other offenders include immigrants from India, Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. The numbers in here range from 2200 to 2800 people who overstayed in Australia. The illegal citizens also include some from Germany, Fiji, Japan and France.
These overstaying immigrants are a big worry for the government as only one-third of them are believed to be working. The numbers of illegal citizens in Australia has increased by 6 percent as compared to the data five years ago.
