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.