Police detain 135 illegal immigrants seeking to escape tough new laws
The police today arrested 135 illegal immigrants seeking asylum outside the UN refugee agency in a bid to escape jailing and whipping under tough new laws.
The immigrants, including women and children, were picked up outside the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) centre in Kuala Lumpur after the expiry of a Wednesday midnight amnesty deadline, a police spokesman told AFP .
"They are mostly Rohingyas from Burma, Acehnese and other Indonesians. All of them have no legal documents and will be handed over to the immigration department," he said.
It was up to the department to decide if the detainees would face harsh new immigration laws effective Thursday, he said, adding that more arrests were expected.
Under the new laws, both illegal immigrants and their employers face a mandatory six months in jail and possibly up to six strokes of the cane.
Thousands of desperate illegal immigrants flooded ports this week in a panicked rush to return home ahead of the expiry of the amnesty yesterday.
Major sweeps
Immigration Director-General Mohamad Jamal Kamdi was quoted by The Star newspaper as saying that some 300,000 illegal immigrants had left under the four-month amnesty which began March 22.
He has said that illegal immigrants who can prove they are willing to leave the country will be granted a one-month grace period before being arrested.
"While we welcome foreign labour, we want to have a law that reflects Malaysia's status as the region's key economic player and that our laws must be taken seriously," he added.
Indonesians, who make up the bulk of Malaysia's migrant population, topped the list of those who have returned home with 243,772 people, followed by Indians at 18,933 and Bangladeshis 16,648.
A spokesman for the national police headquarters said police and immigration officers would begin nabbing illegal workers following the end of the amnesty.
"We are going to launch major sweeps on certain areas with large communities of illegal workers," he told AFP .
Malaysia, which is home to some 750,000 legal foreign workers and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, blames the immigrants for contributing to a growth in crime and other social problems such as two riots by Indonesian workers early this year. AFP
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