Malaysia hosting 85,000 refugees

By LOOI SUE-CHERN | news@nst.com.my 

CHALLENGE: Efforts made to nab those issuing fake permits

GEORGE TOWN: MALAYSIA, apart from housing millions of legal and illegal foreign workers, is also "hosting" over 96,000 refugees and asylum seekers.

As of November last year, there were 10,778 asylum seekers and 85,371 refugees in the country under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). About two decades ago, there were only about 150.

Penang Immigration Department officer Roslinda Alias said refugees with UNHCR cards could not be deported on humanitarian grounds, but ensuring that they did not break the law had become a major problem.

She described the refugee status as a challenge to the department in cracking down on illegal immigrants in the country, as once the foreigners flashed their UNHCR cards, they could not be detained even if there were complaints against them.

For example, she said there were residential areas on mainland Penang occupied by large numbers of Myanmars, who were beginning to act like they owned the place.

"We raided the place after getting complaints from the locals. We later found some 20 people living in one terrace house.

"However, we could not do anything about it once they flashed their UNHCR cards," Roslinda said at a human trafficking and migrant smuggling seminar co-organised by Universiti Sains Malaysia and the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (Ikmas).

Such cards, she said, were not always real but could be easily detected on closer inspection.

"We have long suspected that there are syndicates behind these forged refugee cards and investigations are ongoing to flush out the crooks."

Another challenge for the department was the government policy that allowed a foreigner to stay and work in the country for up to five years after marrying a Malaysian.

The department had found instances of local women being paid by foreigners to marry them.

Roslinda related the case of a woman, in her 50s, trying to get a spouse visa for her new husband, a foreigner almost half her age.