YOURSAY | ‘Who let them in and sustained their presence with countless amnesty exercises?’

'Upsetting and hurtful' - activist on investigation into post on refugee conditions

MS: The issue of undocumented foreigners/refugees/migrant workers has obviously polarised Malaysians.

For decades now, the steady influx of foreigners under various official schemes and as the recent arrests of enforcement personnel in Johor show, via corruption-enabled migration, have reached a state which is impossible to ignore.

They are everywhere. Just everywhere. In almost every sector of the economy. And since they are mostly gainfully employed or are able to make a living serving Malaysians - they have every incentive to get in and stay.

But are they to be blamed? The government, since Dr Mahathir Mohamad's early days in office as prime minister, actively encouraged this influx through a series of short-sighted labour import policies.

That had resulted in the emergence of a flourishing migrant-licensing industry with agents, runners and later traffickers and enablers in the enforcement agencies.

And so, we have Indonesians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Myanmars, Indians and Rohingyas who have successfully filled nearly all available jobs involving manual labour as well as the services and even retail sectors.

Successive labour ministers, as well as employer federations, colluded to keep the supply chain going. After some time, it became impossible to separate the legal from the undocumented migrants and the documented workers from UNHCR card-carrying refugees.

As things stand now, no one has any idea exactly how many there are in the various categories. They are just everywhere, including sprawling ghettos in urban and suburban areas and in places like those decrepit Selangor and Malaysia "mansions", apart from the semi-permanent filthy kongsis that are now a staple of the construction industry

And despite the known futility of shutting the proverbial stable doors after the horses have bolted, there is now a new attempt to stem the tide fuelled by a new political will which in turn is powered by stark health and economic realities.

And in the new rush to please their political masters, enforcement agencies which previously ignored the growing numbers are now finally doing what they should have been doing all these years.

Why enforcement agencies did not do their duty previously is a question for a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) - not that RCIs have ever achieved or answered anything.

But those migrant/refugee NGOs which emerged over the years in response to the influx now need to consider the unintended consequences of their humanitarian acts - which served to attract and support migrants/undocumented workers.

In the end, all that is required is common sense tempered with a dose of humanity as the new policy takes form and substance.

But then again, will all those who gained by the influx - greedy employers, crooked politicians, agents, uniformed enablers and traffickers move on to do something else?

Anonymous_7180953: Please stop trying to pretend that these people are not here illegally. They broke the law and yet we give them medical treatment.

Why don't they go to Doha, the home of fake news channel Al Jazeera? None of these Arab countries takes any refugees or illegals. They are a bunch of hypocrites.

Give voice to them? Nonsense! They have plenty of voice working here and earning a living illegally, running businesses. Malaysia has been very tolerant and patient. Enough is enough.

JusticeNow!: @Anonymous, I agree with you in part but the real issue, and the truth of the matter, is our enforcement authorities have a systemic problem.

They were the ones who let them in and sustained their presence with countless amnesty and regularisation exercises, and when the migrants, both legal and undocumented, become a huge danger to public health, they round them up and detain them.

They were unprepared for this task because even Singapore was caught with their pants down. They do not have the facilities to house these detainees, and probably no country is prepared for such a task.

Question is, are they going to deport them? Already, there are voices calling for them to be legalised again. The problem will continue.

Musang Queen: We need to know if the conditions are as bad as rights activist Heidy Quah says they are. Sadly, that won't happen.

Yes, there are laws we need to be aware of. But think for a second, who designed those laws and why. Have governments ever used these laws to control the narrative and hide their failures and excesses?

Laws aren't set in stone. They can be amended and repealed if found to be contrary to basic human values and democratic ideals. It's just that the ones who have the power to do it will never do it because then they will actually have to answer to and clarify these "defamatory" claims the citizens make.

Imagine yourself seeing something unjust and unsightly happening and not being able to talk about it publicly even though you know it to be the truth because you might have to go to prison for speaking your truth, and you didn't have a camera.

What's worse, even if Quah’s claims turn out to be true, most of us won't care because these immigrants are just "orang asing" (foreigners) through whom all the country's low-paying work gets done, and not actual human beings deserving of basic decency.

Malaysia Bharu: This reflects on the poor state of our law enforcement authorities that are seen as a law unto themselves.

The Immigration Department officer that lodged a police report against Quah's Facebook post and the police officer that summoned her for questioning are barking up the wrong tree.

Quah was merely doing her NGO's function to "amplify and dignify the voices of the most vulnerable communities". Or are they sore about the RM12 Maggi mee expose?

Whatever it is, the Immigration Department chief is duty-bound to respond to the alleged scandalous state of affairs, failing which amounts to an admission of Quah's account of the inhuman and dismal conditions in the detention centre.

However, if this charade of roping in Quah as a sideshow is actually about the Al Jazeera documentary, the authorities must exercise their right to refute the documentary if they have the facts to do so.

In fact, considering its seriousness and our already battered international reputation as a kleptocracy, the authorities must go all out to rebut the ‘false’ accusations.

That would be the proper response rather than merely denouncing Al Jazeera.

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