1,300 employers arrested for harbouring illegals
KUCHING: Some 1,300 employers have been arrested for harbouring illegal immigrants while 44,000 illegal immigrants have been picked up by the authorities following 14,000 operations carried out nationwide from Jan 1 to Nov 28 this year.
In Sarawak, 32 employers and 1,699 illegal immigrants were nabbed through 1,207 operations conducted over the same period.
This was disclosed by directorgeneral of the Department of Immigration Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali during a news conference held at Bangunan Sultan Iskandar here yesterday. With him was director of Sarawak Immigration Department Datu Ken Leben.
According to Mustafar, most of the illegal immigrants had been deported, and the department was fortifying the border and every entry point checked to make sure they do not come back.
Based on a record, he said some 8,800 illegal immigrants were still detained in the country pending court cases.
He said the arrested employers had been prosecuted under the Immigration Act 1959/63 (Act 155), with jail time and even whipping, upon conviction.
Mustafar said even though Malaysia had been tirelessly taking action against illegal immigrants, many employers were still recalcitrant, showing no sign of remorse.
“Our investigations lead us to believe that these employers just want to avoid forking out money on the levy for foreign labour as well as other costs such as work permit and health check,” he said.
Apart from facing charges, he said those employers might also have their corporate accounts and properties frozen.
He added that most of those employers were from Peninsular Malaysia but he did not rule out that similar cases also happened in Sabah and Sarawak.
Mustafar said the implications of not going through the proper procedure of recruiting foreign labour could be huge especially when it involved health check.
He said the authorities had no way of telling whether those foreign workers had any transmissible diseases such as tuberculosis unless they (foreigners) underwent mandatory health check.
As such, he said his department would work closely with the Ministry of Health to prevent any transmissible diseases from being brought into the country.
Mustafar said the five major industries that recruited foreign workers were construction and engineering, service, plantation, agriculture and manufacturing.
Among these sectors, construction and engineering and service industries engaged the most number of foreign workers.
He thus appealed to all employers to comply with the Malaysian immigration regulations and go through the proper procedure to recruit foreign labour.