Singapore denied entries to 33,100 foreigners in 2024 for being security risk – ET TravelWorld

Singapore denied entry to 33,100 foreigners in 2024 after they were found to pose immigration or security risks to the city state, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said on Friday. This was 4,500 more than the 28,600 foreigners refused entry in 2023, added ICA which handled more than 230 million travellers at checkpoints last year, 38 million more than in the year before that.

The ICA said those denied entry were either assessed to potentially overstay or work illegally, or commit crimes in the multi-ethnic island state.

ICA said the jump in annual visitors was largely due to an increase at Singapore’s land checkpoints, accounting for more than 75 per cent of all travellers.

For example, more than 562,000 land crossings in a single day were logged on December 20, 2024 at the Tuas and Woodlands checkpoints, the two bridge-causeway links to Peninsular Malaysia.

ICA said its New Clearance Concept (NCC) at Changi Airport, with automated lanes and passport-free clearance at the airport and progressively at all sea checkpoints, has helped weed out undesirable visitors.

The facial and iris biometrics data collected via the NCC is analysed by ICA’s new Integrated Targeting Centre (ITC) unit. It uses data analytics to identify high-risk foreigners before they arrive here.

These foreigners are flagged for more stringent checks when they try to clear immigration. The automated lanes at checkpoints possess counter forgery detection capabilities supported by multi-modal biometrics screening systems, it added.

“This enables ICA officers to detect travellers using fraudulent passports, as well as repeat travellers impersonating and or using false identities, as we would have their biometrics in our database,” the Straits Times quoted the ICA as saying.

Those who previously committed crimes in Singapore and try to re-enter the country under a different name will be identified.

In a September 2024 Parliament sitting, Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling said no visa regime can completely keep out undesirable visitors from entering Singapore.

She added that besides using technology, ICA also employs advanced passenger information, such as flight manifests and arrival cards, to assess foreign travellers. Sun said repeat travellers will be flagged in the biometric database, as ICA would have captured their biometric data during their previous visit.

ICA’s statistics also showed the number of immigration offenders arrested fell to 536 in 2024 from 587 in 2023.

The number of overstayers arrested in 2024 dropped to 475 from 542 in 2023. But the number of arrests of illegal immigrants rose to 61 in 2024 from 45 in 2023, with 25 of them nabbed by the Police Coast Guard before they entered Singapore.

More people were also arrested for harbouring or employing immigration offenders. That number increased to 389 in 2024 compared with 327 in 2023, according to the broadsheet report. Significantly, there was a more than fivefold rise in the number of people arrested for marriage-of-convenience offences in 2024 compared to 2023, when there were eight cases.

ICA said the 41 people arrested in 2024 were a result of increased enforcement efforts to investigate and disrupt such syndicates. Those convicted for their involvement in a marriage of convenience can be jailed for up to 10 years, fined up to SGD10,000, or both.