A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT ON THE INDONESIAN FREE VISA POLICY: A NEOREALIST PERSPECTIVE

This paper discusses the implementation of free visa policy in Indonesia from a neorealist perspective. By utilizing the perspective of interdependence sovereignty and domestic sovereignty, this paper critically assesses the implementation of the free visa policy in Indonesia. From the interdependence sovereignty perspective, which elaborates the economic benefits, reciprocal and security approaches the paper finds that the free visa policy in Indonesia has yet to formulate a rational and objective policy that would lead to potential security – order threat. On the other hand, from the domestic sovereignty perspective the paper finds that although the state performs its immigration control capabilities effectively, however the said immigration control measures are implemented at a rather repressive level, instead of at the ideal prevention level. In the end, the paper suggests further research that fills the gap from findings on the specific methods to enhance the state’s capability in managing challenges posed by the free visa policy in more detail, as well as providing a method to measure public perception on the performance of immigration control.


INTRODUCTION
In the history of immigration policies in Indonesia, the handover of immigration tasks and functions from the Dutch East Indies colonial government to the Indonesian government on January 26, 1950 marked a shift of immigration politics. Previously, immigration was seen as a tool to sustain colonialism through the open-door immigration policy (opendoor politiek). However, after the handover of immigration tasks and functions to Indonesia, immigration politics was transformed to a selective immigration policy, a policy on immigration based on national interests and pivoting towards balance on the principle of benefit and security factors (Santoso et. al., 2005). This is in line with the opinion stated by President Soekarno when he opened the First All-Indonesian Conference on Heads of Immigration Offices in the Bina Graha Building at the Presidential Palace Complex in Jakarta on May 7, 1953: There is indeed a huge difference between our immigration politics with the immigration politics of the Dutch era, Americans, Australians, and others.

If immigration in Australia, America, or in the Dutch era have opendeur
politiek, which tries to absorb as many people as possible for their countries' needs, then Indonesian immigration limits it as few as possible, only for those needed by (our) country (Santoso et. al, 2005).
In the perspective of immigration, visa is one of preventive measure methods seen as effective to deter unwanted foreign citizens from entering a state's territory. This is done by screening on the data and profile of foreign citizens including destinations, sponsors, and residences during their stay in their destination country, which is done carefully by officials in the diplomatic representatives of the country (Zolberg, 2008). As a result, visa is the first layer of administrative supervisions as part of immigration control capabilities before a foreign citizen enters a country.
In their further development, nation-states open their entry access to their country without visa mechanisms under several rationales. The most common rationale is to ease the way for tourists to enter a country who would bring positive effects towards their economy. Despite so, policies to eliminate visa obligations, which directly eliminates a step in immigration supervision, should be complemented by security considerations, as well as principles of benefits and reciprocity which brings benefits for the country giving free visa facilities (look for example Miller, 1999) 1 In this regard, tourism is one of the sectors which have been relied by many countries since the rise of global economy after World War II, in addition to the rising volume of interstate migration strengthened by the development of information technology and transportation as the catalyst for the rising attention of countries around the world towards tourism sector. Regarding the development of tourism sector, since the 1980s, Indonesia has been implementing progressive free visa policies for tourists from several countries. Free visa regime in Indonesia has been implemented since 1967 as a method for integration in the Southeast Asian region within the body of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as part of a change in Indonesian foreign policy to make it more open towards foreign policies in Southeast Asia (Djafar, 2004). In its later development, free visa policies in Indonesia have been rapidly expanding. The table below shows a background on the expansion of free visa policy in Indonesia from 2011 to 2016. By considering those factors, this paper argues that expansion of free visa policy is highly influenced by economic rationales. The logic of adding the number of countries is done by economic assumption in order to increase national revenue as well as raising Indonesian competitiveness among international tourism. This paper argues that the addition of free visa countries is not complemented by the strengthening of immigration policy formulation based on selective policies by balancing principles of benefits, reciprocity and approach on security.
As a result, by using a neorealist approachespecially the aspect of sovereignty, this paper provides a critical assessment on the implementation of free visa policies in Indonesia from the lens of international relations (IR) combined with some conceptual literature on international migration. This is done considering the writer's understanding that as of now, discourse on the role of state in doing exercise of immigration control in Indonesia based on IR perspective or the concept of international migration is still very minimal (see for example Hollifield, 2012;Weiner, 2006 Adamson, 2006;Freeman, 2005;Hollifield, 2012;Hollifield & Wong, 2000;Weiner, 2006;Zolberg, 1994).
As a neorealist, Myron Weiner (2006) for example, deems the role of state capability in immigration control as very important in protecting the state's legitimacy. This is done by establishing rules of entry and national rules to deter illegal immigrants, human trafficking, as well as asylum seekers trying to enter a state's territory. Weiner (2006) explained that the existence of a state's sovereignty can be protected if a country can protect its capability in implementing immigration controlthrough rules of entry and rules of exit. According to Weiner (2006), immigration control is the dependent variable in an anarchic structure. However, Weiner's writing did not elaborate on how states would implement and increases its immigration control capability (Hollifield, 2012) Besides studying the existence of state sovereignty, some other studies are also focusing on a country's decision-making process on immigration. A study done by Gary Freeman (2005) on the economy politics of immigration, described several predictions of immigration policies as a result of clash of interests in influencing the output of immigration policies with the economic parameters of cost and benefit. According to Freeman (2005), "political economy assumes that states can manage immigration policy for a variety of purposes. How the costs and benefits are calculated, and thus which policy options will be adopted, depends on the characteristics of the political process". Here, Freeman (2005) concentrated more on the domestic politics of a state, observed from the aspect of political economy, and gave less attention to immigration control capability.
Regarding research on international migration in international relations, Fiona B. Adamson (2006) did an extensive enough research based on a neorealist approach, by linking the concept of sovereignty with national security. In this field of study, Fiona believed that the system of balance of power formed by international migration was multipolarwith all countries roughly facing the same challenges. With that situation, according to the neorealist logic the state's capability in regulating dynamics of international migrations should be strengthened (Adamson, 2006 Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001, this paper strengthens the neorealism hypothesis which views the central role of the state in ensuring the legitimacy of a state's sovereignty by using its immigration control capacity through the form of traffic management and immigration supervision in Indonesia based on a selective policy as the axis of immigration politics in Indonesia. The research problem proposed in this research is, first, how the conceptualization of sovereignty, as proposed by Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001 analyses free visa policies in Indonesia? And second, how far are the benefits of the utilization of Krasner's concept of sovereignty in the context of free visa policies in Indonesia?

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
Based on several previous research, generally the concept of immigration and neorealist theory in international relations meet in the intersection of the concept of sovereignty.
And to strengthen its argumentation, this paper uses the concept of interdependence sovereignty and domestic sovereignty as stated by Stephen H. Krasner (Krasner 1999(Krasner , 2001. According to Krasner's view "interdependence sovereignty refers to the ability of states to control movement across their borders" while domestic sovereignty is "the level of effective control a state exercises within its borders" (Krasner, 1999(Krasner, , 2001. As a neorealist, Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001 goes from an understanding of a concept of sovereignty developing in parallel with the constellation of globalization forces that according to some have eliminated the traditional concept of state sovereignty as an unitary actor in the anarchic structure of international politics.
Basically, Krasner realised that the position of a state is being challenged by the wave of globalization, but still does not eliminate the role of the state, because the state has also adapted itself with global dynamics since the birth of nation-states system (Krasner 1999(Krasner , 2001. The level of states' adaptability towards the pressure of globalization forces is manifested through the strengthened state capacity in facing external challenges, such as increasing in economic capabilities, military capabilities, as well as immigration control capabilities (Krasner, 1999(Krasner, , 2001. Then, in the synthesis of sovereignty, Krasner formulated 4 concepts of sovereignty: interdependence sovereignty, domestic sovereignty, Westphalia sovereignty and international legal sovereignty (Krasner, 1999(Krasner, , 2001. In this way, the concept of interdependence sovereignty reflects a state's capability to formulate immigration policies with the dimension of cross-border movement or international migration (Krasner 1999(Krasner , 2001. The focus is on the formulation and policy implementation on immigration. In this regard, a state without intervention in making immigration policies, is present to give or to reject immigration access to foreign citizens entering its country based on its national interest. As a result, Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001) is on the same line as Weiner's view (2006) who sees immigration policy as a dependent variable in an anarchic structure. In addition, by using the concept of interdependence sovereignty, then every policy made by the government should be done through a rational and objective mechanism of policy making. Practically, it can be translated that every new taking of immigration policies should consider the balance between the principle of benefits and the selective security principle, which is rational and objective by analysis on empirical data and framework on sustainable policy evaluation. This argument is strengthened by views by expert of international migration and security, Fiona B. Adamson (2006), who also used the concept of interdependence sovereignty in analysing the strengthening of state capability in regulating immigration control. According to Adamson, the key to success in protecting its sovereignty is through regulating border control through a calculation management of risk effects caused by immigration traffic by maximizing benefits such as economics on one side and to minimize the costs of security risk effects caused by international migration in the other side (Adamson, 2006).
Meanwhile the conceptualization of domestic sovereignty in this paper is state capability to exercise its immigration control towards foreign citizens in Indonesian territory effectively with full authority in line with positive law applied in the country -such as law enforcement and immigration supervision (Krasner, 1999(Krasner, , 2001. Krasner reminded that interdependence sovereignty should be totally strengthened due to its linear correlation with domestic sovereignty (Krasner, 2001). The assumption is that states policies that ease entry rules to a country's territory should be done rationally and thoroughly because its effect will lead to a deficit of control of domestic sovereigntyor capability of immigration control (Krasner, 2001). This is in line with the neorealist approach where the state is faced with security dilemma from the situation of international structure, who on one side wants to get benefits by immigration policies, and on the other side should take precarious steps. The key is to prepare state capability as a form of deterrence in exercising immigration control (Adamson, 2006).
Then to elaborate state capacity in doing exercise of immigration control as manifestation of domestic sovereignty, according to Miller (1999), the state needs a strengthened law enforcement on immigration laws done in a tangible real and strict manner against violations of immigrations and supported by administrative elementshuman resources, budget, technology and other facilitative elements in order to support the law enforcement function of immigration.
As a result, the concept of independence sovereignty and domestic sovereignty, as stated by Krasner strengthens the hypothesis of neorealist approaches that although states currently face pressure to strengthen economic globalization and a huge wave of international migration, the role of state to do the function of immigration control is irreplaceable as long as the state ensures its citizens that its performance as the holder of power has been done well and the state doesn't lost its immigration control (Adamson, 2006;Krasner, 1999Krasner, , 2001Miller, 1999). This is important as according to Machiavelli (1998) the duty of a stateas the Princeis to ensure that its citizens are prosperous and protected from any possible dangerous threats.
If we use the framework logic of interdependence sovereignty and domestic sovereignty from Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001 as elaborated by Adamson (2006) andMiller (1999) then the syllogism that can be constructed is that nation states can release more open entry rules (free-visa policies) as long as they maximize principle of benefitfrom the economic aspect (welfare approach)which can be counter-balanced by security approach through rational and objective policy formulations by observing calculation of security risks (security approach) as well as the principle of reciprocity. As a result, the variable in doing analysis on free visa policies in this paper is analysed through assessment of independence sovereigntyprinciples of benefit and reciprocity, as well as security approach and the dimension of domestic sovereigntythrough the strengthening of law enforcement capabilities and immigration supervision.

RESEARCH METHOD
The research method used in this research paper is qualitative with level of descriptive explanation. Meanwhile the analysis technique done is through reduction. Research method is done by participant observation as collection of primary data dan collection of secondary data given by the Indonesia government as well as international bodies and applied with neorealist theory elaborated with concepts of interdependence sovereignty to contextualize the observed phenomenon with international migration studies.
The testing of data validity is conducted by triangulation method by using combination of participant observation of the author during his time as an official in Indonesia's Foreign Missions overseas, Immigration Official in the General Directorate of Immigration and complemented by support of secondary data, both qualitative and quantitative to strengthen its argumentation.

Free visa Policies and Interdependence Sovereignty
The conceptualization of free visa policies within the perspective of interdependence sovereignty can be elaborated as follows: First, free visa is an immigration policy given to foreign citizens while being outside when they enter Indonesia's territory. As a result, free visa policies are compatible with the concept of cross-border movements. Second, Indonesia as a rational actor conducts free visa policy formulations for foreign tourists from other countries in order to provide benefits for national economy through the instrument of immigration policies. As a result, the concept of interdependence sovereignty is conceptualised by the understanding that Indonesia needs the international environment to contribute to its national economy through free visa policies as an immigration instrument that eases foreign citizens' entry to Indonesia.
The critical question is whether the occurring practice of free visa policies is based upon the rational-objective approaches by balancing between principles of benefiteconomy, principle of reciprocity and security approach? By using Krasner's conceptualization of independence sovereignty (1999,2001) elaborated through the principle of benefit as a variable, this paper's critical assessment on free visa policies is as follows.
The first aspect of the interdependence sovereignty perspective requires scrutinizing the rationality of free visa policies upon the basis of principle of economic benefits. This paper argues that free visa policies that has been expanded since As a result, the problem from economic aspect regarding free visa policies is there is not linear correlation between the increase of foreign tourists and its spending profile.
As a result, the first problem in the critical assessment regarding interdependence sovereignty vis-à-vis free visa policies has been identified. The state should get as much benefit as possible as foreign tourists experience easier entry access to Indonesian territory; however, it was not in line with the initial discussion. From the previous discussion regarding the country spending profile, it is known that the increase of number  (Adamson, 2006;Hollifield, Martin, & Pia, 2014;Indrady, 2011;Krasner, 1999Krasner, , 2001. As a result, based on the perspective of interdependence sovereignty, the second result of the critical assessment show that the principle of reciprocity between Indonesia vis-à-vis other countries that were given free visa facilities by Indonesia is asymmetrical. As a result, the principle of reciprocity has been neglected in free visa policy formulations. The third critical study on interdependence sovereignty is the analysis on visa free policies from the security perspective. Krasner stated that for nation-state entities, the wave of globalization brings many impactsboth positive and negativethat may reduce their sovereignty, but at the same time gives the solution that the most effective way to face it is through increasing state capabilities to formulate effective immigration control policies (Krasner, 1999(Krasner, , 2001. In the immigration context, the security challenge faced by nation-states today is mostly in the form of non-traditional security, which are security threats coming not from military threats, but also to non-military threats, such as transnational crime such as terrorism, illegal migration, narcotics, cybercrime, pandemics and others that not only threaten the state but also the individuals and society in a state (Buzan, Waever, & de Wilde, 1998;Caballero-Anthony, 2010;Collins, 2016) From the perspective of non-traditional security, several previous researches have described several main challenges Indonesia currently faces, such as drug trafficking (Tobing, 2002), cybercrime (Nugroho, 2014), people smuggling (Indrady, 2011;Rizal, 2018), problems of land and maritime borders (Tirtosudarmo, 2015), terrorism (Febriane & Mariamah, 2013) Buzan et al., 1998) in the process of policy evaluation. What is happening instead is the increasing number of countries given free visa policies, which expanded to 169 countries.
The rationale is that the outbreak has been declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global pandemic threat that is unseen, and its magnitude of transmission from human to human without considering national borders. As a result, the act to limit human mobility from both outside and inside the Indonesian territory done by the government is an output of securitization as a result of an extraordinary event (Buzan et al., 1998;Rizal, 2018).
In the perspective of interdependence sovereignty, the state has been strengthening their immigration rules on foreigners as a form of immigration control caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that happened outside of the country's borders (crossborder movement). The ban on foreigners from entering Indonesian territory, especially the suspension of free visa facilities is a part of the state's response a rational actor towards threats faced by the state in the international system. As a result, from the perspective of interdependence sovereignty the decision to suspend free visa entries for foreign citizens is already ideal by focusing on the security approach.
However, the critical assessment that can be proposed in the segment of security is how free visa policies after the COVID-19 pandemic ends will unfold. Albeit no one has given any predictions, by taking the interdependence sovereignty perspective into consideration, the government as The Prince, should reconsider more rational and objective free visa policies by determining the axis of balance between principles of benefit, reciprocity, and security approaches in order to maintain its immigration control capabilities to protect citizens from threats coming from outside of the state's territory.

Free visa and Domestic Sovereignty
The concept of domestic sovereignty describes the use of state capability in doing effective immigration control in its territory under its sovereignty which is recognised completely by international law (Chetail, 2019;Krasner, 1999Krasner, , 2001Miller, 1999;Ramadhan, 2018). The immigration capability in this discussion will explain the variable of administrative strength and law enforcement process, as well as immigration supervision towards foreign citizens in Indonesian territory.  The data shows an increase of foreign tourists' entry to Indonesia around 1.5 to 2 percent a year and the number of foreigners using free visa facilities are approximately around 40% of the total foreigners entering Indonesian territory. As a result, free visa policies generally attract the interest of foreigners to visit Indonesia.  The third example, according to participatory observation in the General Directorate of Immigration, in 2019 (election year) there were many violations of immigration stay permits done by journalists who were covering the presidential and vice presidential elections, which majority of them were using free visa facilities, although Indonesia only allows foreign journalists doing reporting work if they apply for a visa in Indonesian diplomatic representatives abroad, and there were many other cases that could not be explained given limitations in this writing.
The next form of exercise of immigration control is the control in immigration checkpoints (Tempat Pemeriksaan Imigrasi/TPI) or the entry point for foreigners to Indonesian territory. In this case, domestic sovereignty is manifested through TAK, which imposes denial of entry to Indonesian territory for foreigners who do not meet immigration criteria. By recapitulating data of entry refusals for foreigners to Indonesian territory who use free visa facilities in 2019 at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport checkpointthe largest checkpoint in Indonesiathere were 1.802 refusals of entry for foreigners (Kantor Imigrasi Soekarno-Hatta, 2019). Therefore, the average daily refusals of entry to Indonesian territory for foreigners using free visa facilities amount to 5-10 persons per day. Most of the reasons of refusals are immigrational (imigratoir). That means, from the result of checking by immigration officials during arrivals, the foreigners were suspected as illegitimate subjects of entry permits to Indonesia, which are proven by the lack of clarity of accommodation or residence during their stay in Indonesia.
Second, the foreigners did not have return tickets to their country so that in case violations or crime were found while being in Indonesia, it would hamper their return to their country of origin.
Foreigners who were refused of entry to Indonesian territory were deported back to the first point of departure before arrival in Indonesia. Based on on-site data, most of the initial point of departures are located in Southeast Asia with most of them coming from Changi International Airport in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Sepang (KLIA) in Malaysia (Kantor Imigrasi Soekarno-Hatta, 2019). As a result, from that data foreigners using free visa facilities have adequately high security risks, especially from the imigratoir side, which is proven by their refusals of entry to Indonesian territory as a form of domestic sovereignty towards foreigners about to enter Indonesian territory.
Besides several threats occurring in large checkpoints, some reports of supervision towards foreigners on cross-border posts (Pos Lintas Batas Negara /PLBN) on land also show the same security concern. For example, according to report from Skouw PLBN in the border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) there were indications of foreigners entering Papuan territorysuch as foreign journalists as well as foreign intelligence agentswho mostly used free visa facilities, and also towards some foreigners suspiciously considered as foreign agents had their entries to Indonesian territory denied and they were deported from Indonesian territory 5 . Besides imigratoir problems, immigration traffic at the Skouw post is also highly vulnerable because of polio outbreaks in PNG which is a special concern for the Ministry of Health 6 . Besides, other reports given by the Entikong PLBN in West Kalimantan also showed the potential of threats from foreign agents as well as foreigners trafficking drugs and drug couriers coming from Malaysia entering through Entikong PLBN. By the mechanism of cooperation between police and customs officials, some of the criminals were arrested and were brought to justice in Indonesia. The majority of foreign criminals or agents were also using free visa facilities. 7 Based on the empirical facts and data above, In this regard, every guarantor or sponsor of foreigners has rights and responsibilities as outlined in Law No. 6/2011 on Immigration, so that their legal responsibility is crucial for the immigration to support law-enforcement processes in case of violations (Indonesia, 2011). For comparison with foreigners using visa, those necessary data are automatically registered in SIMKIM during visa application in Indonesian diplomatic representatives abroad so in case of violation or other needs to support supervision and function of intelligence towards that foreigner, the law enforcement process will be easier. First, as previously explained in the analytical framework, the component of interdependence sovereignty should be formulated rationally and objectively to avoid possible negative influences towards domestic sovereignty. This is important as since the implementation of free visa policies, risk management calculations to strengthen immigration have yet to be done. This calculation of risk management can be done by country risk-based analysis on quantitative and qualitative data of crimes and violations committed by foreigners that were committed in Indonesia or those possibly damaging national interests. As a result, when there are allegations of foreigners often making violations or serious crimes, it will reduce the credibility towards the country during the government's assessment to give free visa facilities.
According to the author's opinion, as the consequence of the lack of formulations of country risk-based analysis, then the current immigration law enforcement process being done are repressive actions, where immigration law enforcement is done after occurrence of violations done by foreigners, despite the concept of state capability in the anarchic international political system as previously explained uses the concept of deterrence and focuses on preventive measures. As a result, Krasner's (1999Krasner's ( , 2001 logic implies that domestic politics (downstream) will face deficits as the result of lack of strengthening in the upstream (interdependence sovereignty) as conceptualised in empirical findings on-site where the state should have strengthened the role of immigration intelligence in the formulation of free visa policies in the upstreamon country risk analysisto mitigates the risk effects in the downstream.
The second is related to public perception on the performance of exercise of immigration control. As previously explained by Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001 further elaborated by Miller (1999), the indicator of success for domestic sovereignty is when the public perception believes the state has not lost control towards mobility of foreigners to its territory. In this aspect, the concept of sovereignty, as stated by Krasner (1999Krasner ( , 2001 only helped to explain about immigration control activity, both quantitatively and qualitatively that can ensure the public that the performance of immigration control has been done effectively as illustrated from activities and data of immigration law enforcement.
However, this concept has not been able to elaborate the level of public acceptance towards immigration control performance itself, including public sentiment towards the performance of law enforcement and immigration supervision.

CONCLUSION
By using Krasner's concept of sovereignty which includes interdependence sovereignty and domestic sovereignty, this paper has done a mapping of research conclusions as follows. First, the concept of sovereignty as proposed by Krasner has been validly contextualised to free visa policies in Indonesia. From the perspective of interdependence sovereignty, it can be concluded that the implementation of free visa policies has not shown rational and objective policy outputs and has given policy outputs which inadequately support domestic sovereignty. This can be seen in some critical assessment from the application of Krasner's theory to free visa policies. An analysis to the economic benefits component shows that, free visa policies contributions towards national income are recognised to be correlated with the tourism sector. However, the increasing number of free visa countries does not has linear correlations with the spending given by tourists.
The next problem comes from the principle of reciprocity, where the Indonesian passport strength to enter other countries without visa are asymmetrical with the granting of free visa policies from Indonesia to other countries. And lastly from the security aspect, it is known that free visa policies have yet to be evaluated comprehensively in order for policy improvement which should be in line with national interests. Although the government finally decreed a limitation of entry for foreigners to Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic, how the direction of free visa policies after the pandemic ends is still in question. Based on those considerations, the author argues that from the perspective of interdependence sovereignty free visa policies have several basic weaknesses, with the fact that the formulation of free visa policies are built on a relatively unbalanced rationale focusing more on economic factors and pay less attention to security approach and the principle of reciprocity.
Second, from the perspective of domestic sovereignty, despite knowing the complexity of both quantitative and qualitative challenges faced as a result of free visa policies, this paper has shown that the approach of domestic sovereignty which prioritizes immigration control's capability performance both quantitatively and qualitatively have been implemented. As a result, from the neorealist perspective, the state has done its task to ensure and uphold its sovereignty through exercise of immigration control, despite the practice of immigration control capabilities that has been done are only conducted in repressive ways that does not reflect aspects of deterrence -as the base of a state's power and capabilities from the neorealist lens.
Albeit the concept of sovereignty from Stephen H. Krasner has been conceptualised in explaining critical studies on free visa policies from the neorealist perspectivesovereignty, this concept has not been able to give more detailed clues regarding strategic planning to strengthen of immigration control capability to face the challenge of global human migrations which is getting more complex. Besides that, this approach has not been able to measure the level of public perception towards immigration control performance in a state yet. As a result, this study leaves room for future studies that can fill the gap on strategic methods to strengthen immigration control capabilities rationally and objectively as well as the concept of measurement towards the level of public perception on immigration control performance in order to strengthen the state's sovereignty.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is grateful to helpful comments from the journal's anonymous reviewers for useful comments to previous versions, the guidance and proofreading from the journal's editors. The author also thanks the Polytechnic of Immigration and colleagues at the Directorate General of Immigration for providing necessary empirical data for this article.