The government has set itself a target of catching 1,000 illegal immigrants over the next six months, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday at the first meeting of a new task force that has the mission of stemming the flow of illegal Chinese immigrants to Taiwan.
"The task force aims to seize 1,000 to 1,200 illegal immigrants in six months, in addition to tracking down 15 to 25 cases of mass illegal immigration," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
The Cabinet-level task force, dubbed "Hunting Snake," was launched by the Executive Yuan last month to augment the forces combating illegal immigration from China. The government has said that the growing number of Chinese illegal immigrants poses a security risk to Taiwan.
Yu also presided over the inauguration of the campaign at a naval base in Keelung last night.
The task force is headed by Director-General of the Coast Guard Administration Wang Chun (王郡), who reported at yesterday's meeting that the task force had realized its first-phase goal by seizing 322 Chinese illegal immigrants.
It had also ferreted out seven cases of organized human smuggling and prostitution.
The masterminds and their accomplices behind the smuggling of Chinese people to Taiwan are facing harsher punishments, including a minimum five-year jail sentence and a fine of up to NT$10 million, after the Legislative Yuan approved the amended Statute Governing Relations Between People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) in October.
The government will also confiscate fishing vessels that have been used to transport illegal immigrants, which will deal a double blow to fishermen who collaborate with the smugglers.
To fulfill its goal of wiping out illegal immigration, the task force is offering rewards ranging from NT$3,000 to NT$60,000 to people reporting illegal immigrants.
Wang estimated that there would be more than 3,500 Chinese illegal immigrants detained in Taiwan by the end of year.
"The administration has detained about 3,000 illegal immigrants from China since January," Wang said.
He said he expected a decrease in the number of Chinese illegal immigrants now that the Chinese authorities have joined in the crackdown.
National Police Administration Director General Chang Si-liang (
"The government decided to keep the detained Chinese illegal immigrants outside Taiwan to make their repatriation easier," Chang said.
The government is also planning to build more detention centers on Kinmen and Matsu, Chang said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS