Immigration Officers Trained to Register Migrants in Western Tanzania

GENEVA, Switzerland, June 3, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- IOM Tanzania is training a group of 40 Tanzanian immigration officials on the use of a biometric registration system recently created by IOM, in close cooperation with the Tanzanian Immigration Services Department. The system will be used for a planned registration of migrants in Western Tanzania.

The training will allow the officers to use the equipment and an electronic database to register irregular migrants in the country's Kagera, Kigoma and Geita regions.

The registered migrants will be issued with a registration card, giving them an opportunity to regularize their status, by applying for a residence permit, or to get a grace period to pack all belongings and return to country of origin through an IOM Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programme.

“The system will make our work much easier and will allow us to have all relevant data in the same place and at the same time,” said one of the trainees.

“The immigration department does not have enough resources to cope with the current migration crisis and to respond to all management needs,” he added.

The training is conducted in the framework of the project “Migration Crisis Support to Address Migrant Expulsions in Western Tanzania,” funded by the UK Department for International Development.