318 Foreigners Denied Entry by Immigration

Since the beginning of this year, the immigration office at the Bali airport has denied entry to 318 foreign citizens. The reasons varied from criminal pasts to attempts to enter the country without a visa. The majority were the latter: 132 individuals simply forgot to check if they needed a visa to visit Indonesia. This category also includes travelers whose passport validity expires in less than 6 months.

16 arrivals were denied entry because they were on the country's blacklist, but apparently still decided to try their luck. Another 11 individuals were wanted by the International Criminal Police Organization Interpol. One tourist was a pedophile, and the remaining 126 were sought for other undisclosed reasons.

The immigration service not only can refuse entry to travelers but also can prevent them from leaving. In total, 103 people were unable to leave the country. However, 84 of them are local citizens. They were not allowed to leave due to suspicions of intending to work illegally abroad. Of the remaining foreigners, four exceeded the validity of their visas, and another 15 were not allowed to leave for unspecified reasons, which could be related to criminal activity. This was reported by the head of the airport immigration service, Sukhendra.

During the same period, the first quarter of 2024, the immigration service deported 37 foreigners and detained or temporarily placed 27 individuals in the local detention center pending further investigation.

Sukhendra also added that the foreigners who were expelled or deported mainly arrived from Australia, Iran, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and England.

During this period, a total of 1.3 million foreign tourists entered Bali through the airport, which is almost 32 percent more than during the same period in 2023, when it was 884,000 people. Arrivals also contributed 483.5 billion rupiahs in various fees.

The top 10 countries from which tourists come to Bali now are: Australia, China, India, South Korea, England, the United States, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, and Japan.

Sources: antara, detik