Gov't deports 900 Indonesian illegals
The government has deported another 900 Indonesian immigrants in one of the biggest repatriation exercises since a crackdown on illegals was launched in January, a report said today.
The 738 men, 159 women and three children - aged between one and 58 - left on an Indonesian vessel late Wednesday from Port Klang west of Kuala Lumpur to return to places such as Java, Sumatra, Flores, Aceh and Nusa Tenggara, the New Straits Times said.
The mass deportation comes after an announcement Wednesday that public whipping of convicted first-time illegal immigrants will become legal from June.
Assistant superintendent Amir Hassan, the police officer in charge of operations, was quoted as saying that most of the immigrants were arrested because they had no travel documents or were carrying expired work permits.
Almost all of them were rounded up in Kuala Lumpur and surrounding areas, he said.
Malaysian marine police escorted the vessel to international waters, where the Indonesian authorities took over, according to the Times.
Whipping punishment
Immigration department director-general Mohamad Jamal Kamdi said Wednesday an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants were in Malaysia at present.
He said a legal amendment to allow the whipping of first-time illegal immigrants was likely to be enforced in June. Currently, the Immigration Act allows whipping only for those committing the offence for the second time.
Malaysia is home to some 750,000 legal foreign workers and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Indonesians.
The government in January launched an offensive against the migrants with almost daily arrests. Malaysia has said it aims to deport about 10,000 Indonesian illegal immigrants every month.
In March about 1,000 Filipinos were deported from Sabah state on Borneo island in the biggest crackdown on illegal immigrants in decades.
Malaysia is also increasingly intolerant of legal Indonesian workers after riots in January by textile and construction employees.
The government reacted by announcing Indonesians would be hired in future only as domestic helpers and plantation workers.
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