Kuala Lumpur Cracking Down on Illegals – Again

KUALA LUMPUR - Walk into a bar here and chances are the waitress is a Filipina and the hostess a China national.

At the hawkers' centre, food like fried kway teow and wantan mee are being dished out by Myanmarese or Indonesians.

During a long holiday break, the city turns into little pockets of Jakarta, Manila, Yangon, Hanoi and Dhaka.

With factories and construction sites shut, thousands of foreign workers, many of them illegal, roam the streets and sidewalks, visibly outnumbering Malaysians, to just hang out with one another and do some window-shopping.

If the situation continues unchecked, the country 'will face a situation where foreign workers will make up 30 per cent of the workforce, or five million workers by 2010', Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said this week when he announced new measures to stem the tide of illegal foreign workers.

Malaysia has more than 1.3 million foreign workers, and an estimated 700,000 more are undocumented migrants.

It is not the fear of losing their jobs to the foreigners that is a concern. Most of these workers hold menial jobs in factories, plantations and construction sites and are paid measly wages from as low as RM150 (S$68) to RM700 a month.

But the increasing visibility of these foreign workers is causing uneasiness. Rising statistics in crime and other social problems are being blamed on them.

On Tuesday, Datuk Seri Najib announced that, as part of tough new measures, all illegal foreign workers will be prosecuted and sent to jail before they are deported.

The government also plans to come down hard on employers of foreign workers by sending them to jail as well.

Previously, errant employers often got away with just a fine while illegal immigrants were sent to detention centres and deported without serving any jail time.

This is not the first time that Malaysia is announcing tough measures to stop the never-ending flow of illegal immigrants.

The government has deported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in recent years, especially to Indonesia, and plans to do the same this year.

But public intolerance is growing.

A few months ago, a television news broadcast prominently featured the thousands of foreign workers all over the city and highlighted 'bad behaviour' such as sitting in large groups on road pavements.

There has also been an increase in the number of letters to newspapers complaining about illegal immigrants and the rising crime rate.

Fingers have been pointed at illegal immigrants for the soaring crime rate, with many foreigners believed to be involved in snatch thefts and house break-ins.

There is a growing number of women from Indonesia, China, Vietnam and the Philippines working as prostitutes in bars and clubs.

Yesterday, nine Indonesian women were sentenced to 15 months' jail each in Ipoh for overstaying. They admitted to working as prostitutes and possessing forged documents.

Datuk Seri Najib, who also chairs the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Workers, said the government wanted the judiciary to set up specific courts with designated magistrates to handle cases involving illegal foreign workers and their employers.