:Malaysia bound by international law on deportation of illegal immigrant

TAWAU, The country is under the international law thus deportation of illegal immigrant require planning to be taken based on existing international law.

Minister of Home Affair Dato’ Syed Hamid Albar said the country where the illegal came from must first acknowledge them before any deportation could take place.

`Should the country where they (illegal immigrant) came from do not acknowledge them, then we can’t deport them under the law’, he stated in a press conference held at the district’s police headquarter.

He added that this would create socio economy problem for the country resulting in the build up of illegal squatters and increase the rate of crime. Syed also said that it is therefore important for the country to have a concerted effort in tackling the matter.

At the same time, he said that arrest and deportation require more detainment centre and logistical and enforcement capabilities for such exercise to take place.

`The government is serious in achieving a zero illegal immigrant for the country but this is not possible due to the mobility of human from a country to another’, he cited.

Syed also said that the government is also keen in protecting the integrity of Malaysian in this matter and it is important that every Malaysian play their part to solve it. He said that there are some 2.1 million legal foreign workers in the country which include some 220,000 such workers in Sabah and this shows the attraction the country is to foreign workers.

Syed added that there is an estimate one million illegal immigrant in West Malaysia while Sabah has around 90,000 such foreigners.

`between 2001 to 2008, we deported 122,266 illegal immigrant while during the period between 2000 to 2008, we detained some 161,000 illegal’, he said.

In the effort to check on the illegal immigrant, five checkpoints has or will be build and improve costing some RM200,000 each where the places identified are Sipitang, Beaufort, Pensiangan to Kalabakan, Tawau to Kunak and Sandakan to Telupid. Earlier, Syed said that he saw three major issue which need to be address for the state namely illegal immigrant, illegal drug and contraband.