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New York (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Embassy in Washington is not informed of the exact number of Indonesians being detained in the United States as both countries have no bilateral agreement that requires US authorities to notify the matter to the Indonesian embassy, an Indonesian diplomat said here on Saturday.

"The Vienna Convention recommends that local authorities should notify a country`s representative if they detain its citizens, but we have no mutual consular notification agreement with the United States," Anita Luhulima of the the Indonesian Embassy said.

With the absence of the agreement the US authorities had no obligation to inform the Indonesian embassy if they detained Indonesian citizens, Anita said.

In many cases, the Indonesian embassy was informed of the detention of an Indonesian citizen when the Indonesian concerned was asking a legal protection from the embassy.

But not all of Indonesians detained by the US authorities had asked legal assistance from the embassy because some of them were willing to ask for an asylum from the US government, Anita said.

On the deportation of 54 Indonesians recently by the US authorities, Anita said that the embassy obtained their identities only by the time when they were about to be sent home.

They had been detained in a number of US states and cities like Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Delaware, Dallas, Denver, Florida, Houston, Kansas, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Seattle.

She said that the 54 Indonesians were deported on April 8, 2008 because they overstayed their stay permits, which mostly expired for only about six months.

Most of the Indonesian migrants had overstayed their permits for about 15 to 20 years. They were arrested during a major operations against illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania in June last year.

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