Indonesian, RP illegals allowef to stay in Sabah
Indonesian, RP illegals allowef to stay in Sabah
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia's Sabah state and Labuan island will allow about 400,000 undocumented workers from Indonesia and the Philippines to legitimize their status but will ask other illegal aliens to leave by April 1, it was reported here yesterday.
"With the exception of Indonesians and Filipinos, the other illegal immigrants will be given until April 1 to leave the state," Sabah's chief minister Yong Teck Lee was quoted as saying by the daily New Straits Times.
Under the "regularization" scheme, Indonesians and Filipinos are to be given six months from March 1 to sign up with their embassies or consulates in Malaysia in order to stay in Sabah and the nearby territory of Labuan, an offshore financial center.
Valid travel documents would allow Indonesians and Filipinos to continue staying in resource-rich Sabah and Labuan provided they are employed. Those unemployed would have to find a job within three months from March 1 or face deportation.
"An operation to track down unemployed illegal immigrants would be carried out after the first three months of the regularization period," Yong said.
The move is part of labor-starved Malaysia's efforts to curb illegal immigration, which has been blamed for rising social problems. Foreign workers have provided a vital source of cheap labor for the agriculture, construction and manufacturing sectors.
About half of the two million foreign workers in Malaysia are believed to be illegally staying in the country. With a local labor pool of only eight million people, Malaysia is believed to have the world's highest ratio of foreign labor to local workers.
Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. They share extensive maritime borders where illegal travel is difficult to check.
The other sources of illegal workers in Malaysia are Bangladesh, Myanmar, India and Pakistan. Malaysian officials have estimated that some 200,000 Bangladeshi illegals are in the country.