Transcript The potential to harm national interests of Sri Lanka

Bali Process Workshop on Immigration
Intelligence
Threats and Risks to Immigration borders of
Sri Lanka
R.S.L.Rajapakse, Department of Immigration and Emigration
Gihan Indraguptha, Ministry of External Affairs
7th-10th February, Auckland, New Zealand
Contents
• Threats and risks to Sri Lanka’s Immigration borders
Evaluation of threats by Sri Lanka Immigration
• Evaluation of strengths and weaknesses to cope with
threats and risks
• Data collection for intelligence by Immigration
• Action and responses to identified threats and risks
• Future initiatives of data collection for intelligence
analysis
Threats and Risks for Immigration borders
of Sri Lanka
• What is a threat?
“The potential to harm national interests of Sri Lanka”
- possess capability and intent
• Identified threats to Sri Lankan Borders
– Persons with links to terrorist organizations causing
threat to National Security
– Use of Sri Lanka as a transit point for people
smuggling/human trafficking
eg. Other South Asian nationals
Threats and Risks for Immigration borders
of Sri Lanka
– Use of Sri Lanka for international crime such as
document forgeries/printing of fake currencies/credit
card scams etc.
eg. African nationals/ International organized criminal
syndicates
– Violation of Immigration law by foreign nationals who
commit crimes in Sri Lanka
Eg. Some nationals come to Sri Lanka for prostitution
– Use Sri Lanka as a transit point for dangerous drugs
– People seeking political asylum
Evaluation of Threats by Sri Lanka
Immigration
• Capability of criminals
– They have links to international criminals
– They have access to modern technology- print visa
stickers/plastic visa cards/passports etc
• Intent of Criminals
– They try to provide services to their clients by
organizing boats/ships to destinations, transit points/
bribe authorities etc.
Evaluation of Risk to Sri Lankan Borders
“Risk is the degree of harm that would occur if a
threat eventuated”
• Identified Risks to Sri Lankan borders
– Sri Lanka may becomes a human smuggling/trafficking
transit point
– Risk of terrorists using the same networks to cause harm to
the national interests of the country.
– Addiction of drugs by local community
– Increase health expenditure
Strengths and weaknesses to cope with
Threats and Risks
• Strengths
– Trained boarder officers
• Trafficking/ Smuggling/ Document
Examination/Facial recognition
– Document Lab
– Computerized data base and high security passport
– New visa system- ETA
– CCTV cameras at the airport
• Weaknesses
– Poor international cooperation
– Language difficulties- Urdu, Arabic, Chinese etc.
Data Collection for intelligence by
Immigration
– All Deportees and Refused Entry passengers, irrespective of
their citizenship, are handed over to Immigration (Primary
Contact Point)
• Documents receive from the airline
– Preliminary investigations are done by the Immigration
• Verify the passport, nationality, endorsements, verify whether
departed genuinely from SL etc
– If there is any doubt, suspects are handed over to the Police for
further investigation
– If documents are genuine and found to be a legitimate
passenger or the offence has been committed in a third country
and is not an offence under the I&E Act, the passenger is
released
Problems of current system
• Currently a manual ad- hoc system is in operation that
makes data analysis difficult
• Insufficient information to analyze information on
Deportees, Refused Entry passengers
• Analysis of data on log books and registers do not
provide a clear picture of Deportees/Refused Entry –
eg. how many from a particular country, which age
group, route, final destination etc.
Action and responses for identified threats
and risks to Sri Lankan Borders
• Briefing the possible threat to other authorities
• Alert the immigration officers at Entry and Exit points
• Alert immigration officers of identified
flights/destinations/nationalities
• Maintain alert lists to identify passengers with potential
risk
• Deploy more officers at vulnerable points
• Carryout sudden and random checks by the Border
Surveillance Team at final gates
• Introduction of the online visa system instead of visa on
arrival
• Carryout search operations within the country by the
Investigation and monitoring unit
Future Initiatives of Data Collection for
intelligence analysis
• DIE intends to start formal data collection of Deported
and Refused Entry passengers for the purpose of
intelligence analysis
• Some important information that would be collected;
– Travel routes
– Smuggling fees
– Most common destinations
– Modus operandi
– Flights used for journey
– Smuggler details and profiles
– Profiles of smuggled migrants
– Documents used
Success of the project depend on the resources and
manpower of the Department
Future Initiatives of Data Collection for
intelligence analysis
• The Australian DIAC provided training on immigration
Intelligence in 2010
• Further 16 officers received training in 2011
• This analysis is based on the techniques of above training
• Intend to store these information in a MS Excel sheet and
analyze them for intelligence and decision making
Only arrival data are collected at the beginning and it
provides better opportunity to identify trends and
intelligence
Thank You!
[email protected]
[email protected]