Malaysia deports over 280 Indonesian illegal immigrants

Malaysia deports over 280 Indonesian illegal immigrants

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysian authorities deported 287
Indonesian illegals yesterday after rounding up more foreigners
in a crackdown on the country's huge community of undocumented
workers and professionals.

The Indonesians deported, including 12 children, were among
the thousands of illegal aliens being held at detention centers
in Malaysia.

The Bernama news agency said they were brought by trucks from
three detention camps, where they had spent about a month, to a
port at southwestern Malacca state on board a ferry bound for
Indonesia's Sumatra province.

The deportations were carried out despite an offer for some
400,000 Indonesians and Filipinos staying without permits in
eastern Malaysia, near the three countries' common maritime
borders, to legitimize their status.

The resource-rich state of Sabah and Labuan island, an
offshore financial center, have urged the Indonesians and
Filipinos to sign up with their respective embassies or
consulates to gain Malaysian work permits.

Indonesia and the Philippines are co-members of Malaysia in
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and share
extensive borders where illegal travel is difficult to check.
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.

Malaysia's rapid economic growth, averaging eight percent a
year over the past decade, has resulted in a massive shortage of
workers in the lower-paying, labor-intensive sections of the fast
industrializing economy.

Malaysian newspapers meanwhile reported Wednesday that more
foreigners working without permits, including a Canadian teacher
at an international school and five Taiwanese at an electronics
factory, had been rounded up.

Eighty-seven others were detained after police conducted an
18-hour sweep in northern Penang state which ended after midnight
Tuesday.

Authorities screened a total of 1,413 foreigners and found 87
without proper documentation, 52 of them Myanmar nationals, the
reports said.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged Myanmar on Tuesday to
repatriate some 8,000 Myanmar nationals currently detained in
Malaysia as illegal aliens.

The Myanmar government has declined to take them back, saying
the workers had no official documents and were thus stateless,
but Mahathir urged Yangon to acknowledge that they are Myanmar
nationals and ship them back home.