Illegals in Malaysia: 30,000 wait to return home
Bangladeshis made up a large part of the 195,471 undocumented migrants who registered under the Malaysian government’s amnesty programme “Back for Good (B4G)”, which ended on Tuesday.
About 165,040 undocumented workers have already been repatriated to their respective countries, Malaysian newspaper Malay Mail reported yesterday.
Of them, some 38,734 Bangladeshis were repatriated under the programme as of mid-December, according to the media report.
Last week, a top official at Bangladesh expatriates’ welfare ministry said at least 10,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers who registered under the programme were waiting to return home.
The repatriation of some other 30,431 migrants hinged on their flight dates, the Malay Mail report said, quoting the country’s Immigration Department Director General Khairul Dzaimee Daud. “Indonesians, Bangladeshis and Myanmar nationals were among the highest number of illegal immigrants who registered under the programme…,” he told reporters after leading an operation in Puchong, according to the report.
The Malaysian government offered the amnesty programme, which started on August 1, as part of its measures to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the country, according to media reports.
Khairul Dzaimee said during the implementation of B4G, the Malaysian Immigration Department had received numerous complaints about the existence of “touts or agents” claiming to act as middlemen to speed up the process of the programme registration.
Following this, five individuals, both local and foreigners, detained for questioning, were believed to be such middlemen, he said.
“They were found to be carrying out such activities [as middlemen] at the immigration offices in Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur,” he added.
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