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 tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
RSS