An amnesty of sorts for illegals

Malaysian immigration

Mar 3rd 2005 BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition

But many ignored it, and are being punished

EARLY on the morning of March 1st, a team of 500 immigration officers and volunteers encircled a building site on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. They were looking for illegal immigrants, who had ignored the rules of a four-month amnesty and refused to leave the country by midnight the night before. The 62 undocumented workers they found now risk a spell in jail, a fine, and six lashes with a rattan cane, before being deported. The government says it has 300,000 volunteers standing by to join in raids to try to root out every last undesirable alien.

Harsh as all that sounds, there are signs that Malaysia is beginning to take a more rational approach to migrant labour. It has been fighting a losing battle against illegal immigration for years. Its income per head is roughly three times that of neighbouring Indonesia; its unemployment rate, about a third. Poor Indonesians cannot resist the lure of a steady job, while Malaysians are not much interested in ill-paid, uncomfortable work as manual labourers.

Cumbersome and expensive immigration procedures make it difficult for migrant workers to enter legally. But the long and porous land and sea borders between the two countries, not to mention a common language and culture, make it easy for Indonesians to slip in unofficially. No wonder, then, that estimates of the number of Indonesians working illegally in Malaysia range as high as 1m.

The last time the government tried to crack down, in 2002, hundreds of thousands of Indonesians flocked home, to be housed in insanitary and overcrowded camps, where dozens died. But Malaysia's zeal soon waned, and migrant workers quickly returned.

This time around, there are hints of a more rational approach. During the amnesty illegal immigrants could register to legalise themselves. They were still required to leave the country, but given priority when applying to return, which they can do at 12 centres set up for the purpose in Indonesia. The government has also announced that it is considering allowing foreigners to work in restaurants and shops, as well as factories, farms and building. Almost 400,000 undocumented workers took advantage of the offer and left.

But many more could not afford to—not least because some firms took advantage of the crackdown to withhold their pay. When Thailand began a similar registration drive last year, it gave illegal workers an incentive to turn themselves in, by offering those who did a year's leave to stay. Some 1.2m Burmese, Cambodians and Laotians signed up, and are now, in theory, protected by Thai labour laws.

In practice, says Dennis Arnold of the Thai Labour Campaign, a pressure-group, firms still pay migrant workers far less than the minimum wage, knowing that few will complain. He points out that Mae Sot, a city where 100,000 Burmese migrants work, has only a single labour-protection officer, who works one day a week. Nonetheless, last September a Thai court ordered a recalcitrant textile firm to pay 1.2m baht (about $30,000) in back pay to 18 Burmese workers. Other cases are pending.

In the end, both the countries that send migrant workers and the ones that receive them benefit enormously. Filipinos working overseas sent $8 billion home last year, roughly 9% of the country's national income. The presence of 500,000 foreign workers, who make up a fifth of the workforce, has helped to propel Singapore's breakneck economic growth. And businessmen in Malaysia are already complaining about a dearth of cheap labour.

Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.