No more regular legalisation for illegals – Azis

KUALA LUMPUR: The Home Ministry will no longer undertake the legalisation of illegal immigrant workers on a regular basis.

Deputy minister Datuk Mohd Azis Jamman said this was to prevent illegal immigrants from taking the country’s laws lightly and deliberately overstaying after their passes expire.

“The frequent holding of the legalisation programme can become a bad culture for the country,” he said.

For that reason, the Immigration Department was taking stringent measures in its operations because his ministry wanted to give a clear message to illegal immigrants that firm action would be taken against them without any compromise, he told the Dewan Negara yesterday.

He was replying to Senator Datuk Chai Kim Sen who wanted to know if the ministry strictly executed corporal punishment on employers who hired illegal immigrants as stated in Section 55B (3) of the Immigration Act 1959/63.

Commenting further, Mohd Aziz said the operation on illegal immigrants would continue until the problem was resolved.

Meanwhile, he said the ministry was working with the Ministry of Human Resources to refine and fine-tune the policy of hiring foreign workers.

“Insya-Allah (God willing), we will soon announce the new policy including levy payments, new conditions, especially for companies wishing to hire foreign workers,” he said.. - Bernama