Malaysia Delays Crackdown on Illegal Migrants

By Rexcel Sorza, IOL Correspondent

ILOILO CITY, Philippines, February 1 (IslamOnline.net) – Malaysia decided Tuesday, February 1, to put on hold its crackdown against foreigners illegally staying on its soil, but a migrants’ group in Manila warned it could result to human rights violation once carried out.

No official announcement of the postponement was made, but Malaysian local media quoted home ministry sources as saying an amnesty period would be extended and one official told AFP he had not received a directive to begin the sweep, due to begin Tuesday.

Malaysian authorities were set to crack down on nationals illegally staying in the country starting Tuesday, a day after its January 31 amnesty deadline expired. Malaysia has extended the amnesty thrice already.

Filipino Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs Jose Brillantes said Monday, January 31, that the Philippine government is committed to ensure the orderly repatriation of undocumented Filipino migrants in Malaysia.

“The government is adequately prepared with measures to deal with the expected influx of Filipino repatriates from Malaysia,” Brillantes said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net.

He also said that the Philippine Inter-Agency Task Force, which was formed during the last amnesty granted by Malaysia in 2002, was reconvened to attend to the Filipinos’ needs. The task force will have two teams stationed at the point of departure in Sabah, Malaysia and the arrival point in Tawi-Tawi in Mindanao.

The Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur has issued about 17,500 travel documents since the amnesty to voluntarily leave Malaysia was issued in October last year. Malaysian Police estimates that there are about 170,000 undocumented Filipinos in Sabah territory alone.

Most of the undocumented Filipinos in Malaysia hail from the Mindanao provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga, Lanao, and other far-flung areas that are among the nation’s poorest provinces. Most of them are Filipino Muslims.

Migrant Group’s Fury

The Malaysian undeclared delay, however, was not enough to soothe down the fury and concern of migrant and human rights groups.

“An extension of the amnesty period is not even a palliative [measure] to the crisis facing the Philippine government on the 500,000 undocumented Filipinos up for inhumane deportation in Malaysia,” said Connie Regalado of Migrante, a migrants’ group advocating migrants’ rights.

“It will merely move the date of the brutal crackdown on undocumented migrants back by a few days,” she told IslamOnline.net Tuesday.

Migrante called on the Malaysian government, which suspended the crackdown apparently due to the requests of the United Nations, Indonesia and the Philippines, “to stop the crackdown and respect the human rights of migrants in Sabah and all of Malaysia.”

It also asked the Philippine government to “take appropriate policy and practical measures to attend to the upcoming crackdown that will victimize hundreds of thousands of undocumented Filipinos in the plantations, construction, entertainment and restaurant industries.”

Regalado said their group fears a repeat of incidents in 2001, where babies of undocumented Filipinos died in cramped ships that were used to send them home.

Human rights

Joining forces with Migrante, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have separately called for the stop to the crackdown and eventual deportation.

Natalie Hill, deputy Asia Director at Amnesty International, earlier said, “We are seriously afraid that the mass deportation will result in large scale human rights abuses, such as ill-treatment, prolonged detention, and lack of access to medical care.

“A similar deportation in 2002 resulted in migrants falling gravely ill, with three children dying because of the unhygienic conditions in government detention centers, according to Malaysian media reports,” she added.

Human Rights Watch, on its part, expressed grave concern about the potential for a wide range of human rights abuses during the expulsions including the use of excessive force during immigration raids and the prolonged detention of migrants in unsanitary conditions.

New York-based HRW also noted that the Malaysian authorities may fail to distinguish trafficking victims, abused migrant workers and refugees from other undocumented migrants, deporting them instead of providing assistance.

Affects Back Home

Meanwhile, Philippine Senator Ralph Recto said the delivery of health and social services in Mindanao would be seriously strained if the Filipinos are deported from Malaysia.

He said that the government had a hard time providing food and housing to the Filipinos sent home from Malaysia in 2002, who numbered less than 10,000.

“If this incoming wave of refugees is ten times bigger than the one in 2002, or 100,000 persons, then we are facing a crisis,” he said.

The crackdown will seek out undocumented migrants who will be subjected to jail time and other punishments before they are deported. The Malaysian government has given partial police power to the 560,000-strong Peoples’ Volunteer Corps that will be rewarded 100 ringgits per undocumented migrant arrested.

The Malaysian government has announced an amnesty period during which an estimated one million undocumented foreigners can return home without penalty. From November 14, 2004, it was extended to December 31, 2004 and then to January 31, 2005.

Filipinos and Indonesians went to Malaysia and worked in plantations, construction, entertainment, and restaurant industries for years without the required papers. They are lately being blamed for crimes, mushrooming of shanty settlements and siphoning of dollars out of the Southeast Asian state.