According to an article published by the Malaysia Star on January 27th, on February 15th of this year, the Malaysian Immigration Department lead a nation-wide crackdown on foreign workers living in the country illegally.
“The Malaysia authorities want to clean their country [of illegal labor], so they announce like that. Because of that information [the crackdown], some of the bosses aren’t taking care of their migrant workers. And then, those who are working with illegal workers are also anxious. So now they [illegal migrant workers] are working secretly” said U Aung Kyaw Set, Secretary of the National League for Democracy - Liberated Area (NLD-LA) in Malaysia, who confirmed the article’s claims.
The despite the publicity of the Star’s article, the news came as an unpleasant surprise to several of IMNA’s interviewees. According to a Burmese migrant worker (who asked to remain anonymous) living illegally in Malaysia’s Katar Township, many migrant workers in the country are still unaware of the upcoming purge.
“We don’t know about this. Our boss did not say anything to us. If they [Immigration authorities] will come to arrest us, our boss will warn us first, and we will go hide to avoid arrest. Last month they [authorities] came, and we avoided it. This arrest is will be bigger than last time I think, but our boss did not tell us,” he said.
A second Burmese migrant worker, working illegally on the Thailand-Malaysia border, in Partam town said “Malaysian authorities, before they arrest migrant workers, they will announce it [in a newspaper]. It is not sure if there will be arrests, but we have to be careful.”
Illegally-employed migrants in possession of identification from the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will not be spared in the February 15th crackdown, claimed Ko Oug Kar, a member of a Mon youth organization in Malaysia. The Malaysian Department of Immigration does not officially recognize UNHCR identification; according to a February 2nd article from the Irrawaddy newsmagazine, plans to issue Malaysian identity cards are still being processed.
“If you have a UNHCR card identification, they can arrest you. Because the Malaysian authorities don’t agree with the UNHCR IDs. If the person who has a UNHCR card is arrested by the Malaysian authorities, the UNHCR committee will talk to Malaysian authorities. If they [the UNHCR and the arrested migrant] meet with the bad kinds of soldiers they have to pay bribes [to go free]. Now, those who already have the UNHCR cards are also afraid ” he said.
He added that currently, 75,000 foreign workers in Malaysia possess UNHCR identification; roughly 60,000 of these individuals are Burmese.
According to Secretary U Aung Kyaw Set of the NLD-LA Malaysia, the nation’s Immigration Department has led 4 similar nation-wide crackdowns in the past, in the years of 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2007. Workers arrested in these sweeps are forcibly sent back to their country of origin.
Secretary U Aung Kyaw Set also informed IMNA that a total of 2,000,000 individuals largely from Burma, the Philippines, and Bangladesh work in Malaysia; 600,000 of these workers are Burmese. Roughly half of these workers live and work in Malaysia illegally.
