Hamzah tells undocumented migrants in Sabah to go home

Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin is telling the undocumented migrants in Sabah to go back to their home countries before the authority goes after them.

"I will act to ensure there is no document other than the existing one (be issued to the undocumented migrants).

"We (will) resolve this. Can anyone tell those who are staying in Sabah without documents to immediately leave and go back to their countries of origin because we will conduct a large-scale operation," he told Dewan Rakyat today.

He also clarified that the government would not issue any new documents other than what had already been issued.

He said this after lawmakers from both sides expressed concern and opposed to his proposal to standardise the three documents issued to refugees and migrants who arrived in Sabah since the 1970s.

On July 14, Hamzah was reportedly saying that the government would not issue a new document to regulate existing undocumented migrants in Sabah.

Hamzah, however, stressed the importance of using only the current IMM13 paper as the standard document to regularise the existing 136,000 migrants who hold various documents in Sabah.

The parliamentary Hansard dated July 14 had shown Hamzah taken a softer approach in dealing with a long-standing immigrant issue, particularly involving stateless children.

"If we could not give them the (citizen) status, we will at least make sure that they do have an identity to live in the country.

"For me, they are the citizen of the world whether they are in Sabah or anywhere, as long as they are human beings.

"As such, I want to make sure things could be done so that each of them has an identity,” Hamzah had said.

Beside IMM13, the migrants also hold Kad Burung-Burung issued by the state government and census certificate issued between the 1970s and early 2000.

There were also news reports that undocumented migrants constantly sneaking into Sabah borders. The issue is deemed as sensitive particularly when Sabah is going to the polls.

In January, Warisan lost in Kimanis by-election partly due to the Sabah Temporary Pass (PSS) issue harped by BN.

Back then, the Pakatan Harapan planned to resolve the migrant issue by issuing the temporary pass that could be renewed every three years.

Earlier, Azizah Mohd Dun (PN-Beaufort) opposed to Putrajaya's plan to standardise all migrant documents.

She said the people feared that they would one day be outnumbered in their own state by the migrants.

"We don't know where they are coming from. We are worried that we will become a minority in our own state," she said. 

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