Yesterday the South Jakarta Immigration office announced that it had created a special task force called Timpora (Tim Pengawasan Orang Asing) to monitor the large number of expatriates living in that area of the capital.
Although the task force is meant to cover all of South Jakarta, Immigration officials said they would be focusing on a few areas with high concentrations of foreigners, including Kebayoran Baru, Kemang, Kuningan and SCBD.
However, the head of the South Jakarta Immigration Office, Cucu Koswala, said that they would be placing a special emphasis on investigating the foreigners living in the Kalibata City Apartments, including assigning surveillance teams to the housing complex.
“We expect our presence there to suppress and eliminate problems by foreigners,” Cucu told reporters yesterday when they met him at Kalibata City, as quoted by Tempo.
Apparently the police are not the only ones concerned about the presence of foreigners in the apartments. The chairman of the Trustees Association of Unit-Owning Residents at Kalibata City, Musdalifah, said that the presence of foreign nationals in Kalibata City was often “disturbing” to local residents, noting that about 20 percent of the residents who occupy the 13,000 apartment are foreigners from various countries.
“Most of them claim to belong to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), the world organization which handles refugee immigrants. They are protected, so they act as they please,” he said.
Musdalifah also revealed that he and some residents have formed an association to coordinate the supervision of foreigners in the apartment with Immigration. He told reporters that he was concerned the UNCR was putting immigrants there.
“We consider them trash, dumped into Kalibata. Hence we are coordinating [with immigration],” he said.
That is, of course, a completely outrageous and insulting statement. There have been instances of immigration finding illegal aliens staying at Kalibata City as well as prostitution rings being run out of the complex (by locals), but there is no evidence to suggest that the apartment has a large number of refugees living there illegally, and certainly none that they they are actively being placed there by the United Nations.
