Illegal foreign workers in Malaysia drop drastically
Local media reported on December 14 that the number of illegal foreign workers in Malaysia have reduced drastically thanks to the Immigration Department’s rehiring and resettlement of illegal immigrants programme.
Illegal foreign workers arrested at a construction work in Negri Sembilan, Malaysia (Source: nst.com.my)
Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – Local media reported on December 14that the number of illegal foreign workers in Malaysia have reduced drasticallythanks to the ImmigrationDepartment’s rehiring and resettlement of illegal immigrants programme.
According to Freemalaysiatoday newspaper, Minister of Human Resource Richard Riot lauded the success of theprogramme, which was launched on February15 and is scheduled to end on December31 this year.
Without mentioning the specificfigures, the minister said that only three out of 10 foreign workers are nowillegal with the rehiring and resettlement of illegal immigrants programme.
Richard said there were twotypes of illegal foreign workers, those who came into the country via legalmeans and those who were here without any valid travel documents or employmentpermits.
According to the minister, thelatter includes foreign immigrants with falsified passports and fake employmentpermits and who enter the country via unofficial channels.
On the former, Richardexplained that even though such foreign workers came into the country usingvalid documents, they become illegal for various reasons, such as when theirwork permits expire and are not renewed, they are terminated from service, ortheir employers fail to renew their work permit.
The programme was implementedby the immigration department, following the government’s move to freeze theintake of foreign workers.
Aside from enabling illegalforeign workers to obtain valid work permits and help fulfill industry needs,the programme was to help the government ascertain the number of illegalmigrants in the country for the purpose of monitoring security.-VNA
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Illegal foreign workers arrested at a construction work in Negri Sembilan, Malaysia (Source: nst.com.my) 
