Due to bureaucratic complication, no separate unit or department developed to look after immigration at land, rail, sea and air ports.
The immigration duty is performed by members of the police who are posted to immigration as part of their routine transfers.
On Jun 5 last, Biman Bangladesh captain, Fazal Mahmud crossed immigration without passport and went to Qatar. In this incident, one immigration official was suspended and a probe committee formed.
The report submitted by the committee recommended forming a separate immigration and passport department with own manpower.
The work of the immigration and passport department involves printing passport and giving visas to foreigners. To print passports, police verification is needed. Though immigration department gives visas to foreigners, the on arrival visa is given by the police.
A home ministry document states that entry point visa cell was established at the Shahjalal Airport in 1998 with the order of the home ministry.
The home ministry order further said that the on arrival visa will be issued by immigration and passport department and Special Branch, SB of police, will no longer perform the duty of giving on arrival visas.
However, by another order in 2011, the SB was reinstated in the duty revoking the previous order.
At present, immigration and passport has 1184 posts; to carry out organizational restructuring, a proposal for 2953 posts were sent to the ministry of public administration.
Old documents of the home ministry state that immigration and passport department is known as the immigration authority.
In case there is a case at port, the opposition is also this department.
In alignment to the International Civil Aviation Authority, this department began handing out Machine Readable Passports, MRPs and Machine Readable Visas.
Meanwhile, police head quarter says that at present, 944 police officials under a DIG is working as immigration police.
This is done as per the The Control of Entry Act, 1952 and with approval from the home ministry.
The problems of not having special immigration:
Without a special immigration, monitoring of the entry of foreigners becomes troublesome. Some foreigners on tourist visa are working while others are playing football for local clubs.
The concern is more because many foreigners are involved in drugs, counterfeit money and other crimes.
Other countries have separate immigration authority; in USA, immigration is looked after by Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In India, it’s looked after by the Bureau of Immigration.
Opinion of specialists:
With the development of the country, the number of ports is increasing and since diplomatic relation with other nations is increasing, the number of ports is also rising.
Therefore, to offer optimum services, a full-fledged immigration department is needed.
IGP of police, Nurul Huda, says: “The current system is working and does not have any problem; SB is looking after immigration and, as a result, we have all the information about people entering and leaving the country.”
AIG of police HQ, Sohel Rana, has added: “For 150 years, immigration in this country is being looked after by selected police officers; they are professional and they have world class skills.”