KL set to start crackdown on illegals

Source: STAR file

Malaysia is set to start a nationwide crackdown on illegal foreign workers tomorrow to streamline its labour market.

“The Malaysian police will carry out raids at factories, business houses and expatriates’ residences to detain foreigners staying here without documents,” said Mantu Kumar Biswas, labour counsellor at Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

Some Bangladeshi nationals working in Malaysia without valid documents will face the crackdown, he told The Daily Star over phone this evening.

If Bangladeshis are picked up in the crackdown, they will be able to return home after paying fines, he said adding they may face trouble to visit Malaysia later.

Biswas, however, could not confirm the number of such Bangladeshis working in Malaysia illegally.

Earlier in January 10 this year, Malaysian Home Minister Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the cost of deporting illegal immigrants to their countries of origin would be borne by the immigrants themselves, their employers or the missions of those nations.

“The government will not use public funds to deport them. We have discussed this with the respective foreign missions,” Malaysian newspaper The Star reported quoting Hamidi.

In August 2012, the Malaysian government also ran a crackdown against the illegal expatriates and then over 500 Bangladeshis were detained.