Malaysia monitors illegal immigrants

Malaysia monitors illegal immigrants

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Malaysian security officials were monitoring on Friday 5,000 Indonesians on an island south of Kuala Lumpur who they believe will try to enter the country illegally, the national news agency, Bernama, reported.

Internal Security and Public Order director Abdul Hamid Mustapha said the Indonesians were gathered on Indonesia's Batam island in the Malacca Straits near Malaysia's Johor state and Singapore.

"They will try to enter this country through east Johor in the early morning to avoid arrest," the national news agency, Bernama, quoted Abdul Hamid as saying.

He said 20,000 illegal immigrants, mostly Indonesians, are currently being held at nine detention centers in Malaysia.

More than one million foreigners, many of them without valid documents, work in Malaysia, which is one of Southeast Asia's wealthiest countries and has recovered well from the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis.

Many of them are from Indonesia and Philippines, where a prolonged economic crisis, political instability and insurgency problems have caused them to flee.

Malaysia deported more than 60,000 illegal workers in 1999 and another 97,251 were sent back last year. The Immigration Department expects deportation figures to surpass 100,000 this year.