The government is set to crack down on hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants when an amnesty for them to leave the country expires on Feb 1.

"So far, there are no changes to our policy, we will begin the operations on February 1," Home Minister Azmi Khalid said in a AFP report.

Malaysia has announced that it will deploy more than half a million members of volunteer security groups along with police to track down and detain illegal immigrants, mainly from Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Several rights groups have criticised the move, with Amnesty International saying it could lead to abuses and Human Rights Watch describing it as "ominous".

But Azmi sought to allay fears saying that the volunteers had undergone training and were familiar with operational procedures.

All the logistics had been prepared, including transportation, handcuffs and batons, as well as all detention camps around the country which can hold up to 16,000 detainees at any one time, he said.

Joint memorandum

Meanwhile, a joint memorandum endorsed by 40 NGOs and calling on the government to cancel the crackdown on undocumented migrants was sent to the Home Ministry today.

Its spokeperson Elizabeth Wong said the memorandum urging the government to reconsider the effectiveness and implications of the crackdown was handed over to a ministry officer.

However, Wong who is also secretary-general of the National Human Rights Society (Hakam) expressed her disappointment that the officer they met was unable to answer questions raised in the 20-minute meeting.

"It seemed the ministry did not take us seriously. The officer couldn't answer any of our questions but only said he would convey our request for a meeting to the minister," she said when contacted today.

The memorandum noted that the crackdown will not help the government to reduce the number of undocumented migrants in Malaysia as it does not deal with the root causes of illegality.

"The government needs to consider more effective structural reforms to adequately solve the 'illegal' issue."

Human rights violation

The memorandum also said they anticipate a high potential for human rights abuses to occur through such mass scale-operations.

"We are concerned that mass expulsion may create humanitarian crises at points of deportation, as occurred in Nunukan during the 2002 deportations."

The group also urged the government not to forcefully return migrants to tsunami affected countries.

"This places additional unwanted burden on local populations, humanitarian organisations and government struggling to overcome the difficulties caused by the tsunami."

The amnesty for the illegal migrants was due to expire on Dec 31 but Malaysia later extended it for a month amid fears that mass deportations would worsen the humanitarian crisis after the tsunami disaster particularly Indonesia.

There are an estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants in Malaysia, mainly from Indonesia, Burma and the Philippines.