Malaysia Postpones Crackdown On Illegal Immigrants

Associated Press
Tuesday, February 1, 2005

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has postponed a campaign to detain and deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants following requests by Indonesia and the Philippines, officials said Tuesday.

Police, immigration and civilian volunteers were due to launch nationwide raids Tuesday on migrant hide-outs, immediately after the end of a four-month amnesty program that allowed illegal foreign workers to leave Malaysia without being prosecuted.

Illegal immigrants, mostly Indonesian and Filipino, who missed the Jan. 31 deadline risked being whipped with a rattan cane, fined and jailed before being deported.

Immigrations officers told The Star and New Straits Times newspapers on condition of anonymity that they received orders late Monday not to proceed with the raids.

Mahadi Arshad, director-general of a government volunteer agency that was to have been deployed for the crackdown, said "we are still finalizing details."

"The raids are definitely on but we cannot announce when they will be launched as this will jeopardize our operations," he told The Associated Press, declining to elaborate.

More than 300,000 illegal workers have returned home under the amnesty offer, which began in October. However, officials estimate that about half a million still live and work in Malaysia, one of Southeast Asia's richest nations.

Indonesia and the Philippines had both asked that the amnesty be extended.

"We are thankful for the action taken by the Malaysian government," Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Jose Brillantes told The Associated Press. "What the embassy is now going to do is to look at the finer points of this, the implications of this announcement."

He noted that "there is a distinction between mainly postponing the crackdown ... and extending the amnesty."

An official at Indonesia's Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, I Gde Arke, said, "both governments have agreed to settle the issue ... and treat the troubled immigrants humanely, both during the crackdown and their deportation."

He said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to visit Malaysia on Feb. 14 to discuss the issue.

The crackdown had originally been scheduled to begin in January, but Malaysian authorities postponed it on Jakarta's request following the tsunami.

Malaysia's 80,000-strong police force - in a rare public statement - said it would not take part in the proposed crackdown despite earlier statements by government officials that police and immigration officials were spearheading the effort.

Police "were never called to attend any meeting by the Immigration Department," The Star quoted deputy national police chief Musa Hassan as saying.