Rights group Tenaganita said the authorities have no one but themselves to blame for the presence of thousands of migrant workers, currently stranded at the KL International Airport car park.

Its director Irene Fernandez said both the Home Ministry and labour outsourcing companies should be held accountable for the influx of jobless foreign workers from Bangladesh.

She was responding to a press report quoting Immigration Department enforcement director Ishak Mohamed ( photo ) as saying that they would be deported for trying to enter Malaysia without first securing a job.

Ishak told The Sunday Star that if Bangladeshis were planning to enter Malaysia with legal permits and for the purpose of seeking employment later, they could go no further than the makeshift immigration depots at the KLIA car park.

In a statement, Fernandez said it was wrong of the department to pass the buck to the foreign workers since the Home Ministry had approved their entry in the first place.

"If there are no jobs available, why was approval given to these (labour outsourcing) companies within 24 hours?" she asked.

"How are applications to recruit thousands of workers (approved) without proper verification?"

'Not illegals'

She argued that the Immigration Department cannot treat the workers as "illegals" because they have valid visas issued by the Malaysian High Commission in Dhaka.

"The visas were issued only after approval was given by the Home Ministry and after the contracts (between employers and workers) were attested to by the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. Thus the workers cannot be treated as illegals," she said.

Fernandez said Tenaganita would work with the Bar Council to determine how a case of unlawful arrest can be filed against the Immigration Department.

The department plans to deport Bangladeshis who have been at the KLIA car park for more than 24 hours. They were allegedly stranded there after their agents or employers failed to 'collect' them.

Many of the workers claimed to have paid up to RM12,000 in order to seek employment in Malaysia.

This issue, among others, has attracted the attention of the Bangladeshi authorities who sent a high-level delegation here last week to investigate the problems faced by their nationals.