Jakarta. Over 4,000 Indonesians are among the millions of foreigners who have received final deportation orders in the US which is currently witnessing mass arrests against undocumented immigrants.

Newly installed US President Donald Trump kicked off his White House return by launching an immigration crackdown. The Foreign Affairs Ministry reported Thursday that the American federal authorities had only caught two Indonesian immigrants so far. This is still only a tiny fraction of over 8,000 immigrants that had been arrested in such operations. 

Thousands of Indonesians are on the non-detained docket of the so-called “final order of removal” list issued by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The individuals on this list have received final deportation orders from immigration courts, although they still remain in the US. They are also not detained in ICE court. As of Nov. 24, 2024, there are a total of 1.4 million foreign nationals with final orders of removal.

“Some 4,276 [of the listed 1.4 million immigrants] are Indonesians. These people are undocumented noncitizens and already have a final order of removal, but they are not detained,” Judha Nugraha, the director for citizen protection at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday.

Judha said that the Indonesian government would “continue to keep an eye” on the Indonesians who had been ordered deported amid Trump’s crackdown. The diplomat added that arrested individuals should know their rights.

“And that is that any Indonesian [caught in such raids] has the right to access consular services and contact the Indonesian diplomatic mission. They also have the right to a lawyer, and also to refuse to answer questions from the law enforcement if they don’t have their lawyer yet,” Judha said.

Last week, the ministry revealed that two undocumented Indonesian citizens got caught in Trump’s immigration raids. One individual, known by their initials TRN, got detained in Atlanta, Georgia on Jan. 29. The other Indonesian was known as BK, whom local authorities arrested in New York the day before. BK had already been on ICE’s final order of removal list since 2009. BK was making their routine check-ins with ICE authorities during the time of the arrest.

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