Mediaboss Marketing

KRGV the ABC affiliate in Texas Rio Grande Valley (RGV) reported recently that the morgues in Maverick County, Texas, are running out of space due to the number of migrants found dead on the Rio Grande at a rate of one body per day. Two weeks later, Fox News reported that the Biden administration has awarded $41 million in taxpayer-backed government contracts to a new liberal nonprofit working to help illegal immigrants fight deportation amid the escalating border crisis. Theres a lot tying those grants and the administrations border policies generally to the morgues of Maverick County.

Refrigerated Trailers to Handle the Dead. Eagle Pass is the county seat of Maverick County, and KRGV quoted the towns fire chief, Manuel Melo III, who explained his jurisdiction is recovering one migrant found dead daily, approximately 30 a month, although he admitted: There were some days where we did recover six bodies.

There is a lot in that one statement. First, if you have never been there, Maverick County at 1,287 square miles is big (about 20 percent larger than Rhode Island), but with a population of just over 58,000, is also sparsely populated. Nearly half of the countys residents live in Eagle Pass, itself largely just a dusty outpost on the ride from Laredo to Del Rio.

Its no wonder that, at a rate of one body per day, the local morgues (capacity: fewer than eight) are overwhelmed. As KRGV reports:

In a scene eerily similar to the height of the pandemic, the dead are being stored in refrigerated trucks. The county is also currently borrowing a refrigerated trailer from Eagle Pass with the capacity to store up to 30 bodies.

Jeannie Smith, a Maverick County justice of the peace for Precinct 3-2, explains that the recovery and disposition of the corpses is causing a strain on the county (likely an understatement), while according to KRGV, the local medical examiner is not surprisingly facing a backlog in cases.

Open Borders and the Untold Dangers of Illegal Migration. Second, and most importantly, each of the dead was a human being with a family, hopes, plans, a life. They showed up at the Southwest border to enter illegally because their hopes and plans were to continue that life in this country.

And why wouldnt they? Ever since Joe Biden was sworn in as president, and administration assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, the U.S. border hasnt just been open, its been nonexistent for all intents and purposes.

In fact, Bidens DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has admitted that the administrations objective is not to sharply reduce the total number of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border, but rather to make sure that we have safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system once they have entered. I will get back to that point below.

While the administration can spend tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to provide transportation, food, and shelter for illegal entrants once they are on this side of the border, there is little to nothing it can do to make the trip to our Southwest border any safer.

That is the nature of the illicit trek north, particularly given the fact that the journey is largely stage-managed by rapacious (in the truest sense of the word) smugglers and criminal cartels on the other side.

Many would argue that migrants understand and accept the risks before setting out from their home countries, but I seriously doubt that is true. What kind of parents would knowingly expose themselves and their children to rape, robbery, kidnap, and extortion, let alone dangerous and terrifying crossings in remote desert areas, across rivers, over fences, and through razor wire, if they understood those dangers ahead of time?

As I explained back in 2018, there was a time (under the Obama administration) that outlets as diverse as NPR and National Geographic reported on those dangers, likely because they were taking their lead from the White House. When was the last time that you heard President Biden, Vice President Harris, or any other administration official talk about the hellish journey to illegally enter the United States?

Why the silence since? I can offer a couple of opinions, one of which is that migrant deaths to say nothing of rapes, robberies, and assaults paint the administrations border policies in a bad light. That said, it is undeniably true as my colleague Mark Krikorian explained a year ago that such policies create an attractive nuisance to the illegal migrants coming to take advantage of them.

Attractive Nuisance Doctrine. Attractive nuisance is a tort doctrine, generally defined as a dangerous condition on a landowner's property that may particularly attract children onto the land and pose a risk to their safety. Think unfenced pools and ladders left propped against houses.

Most of those illegal entrants are not children (though more than a hundred thousand under Biden have been), but as Krikorian explained, consistent with that doctrine, if you dont put a fence around your country, and migrants suffer harm trying to get in, your government is liable.

Not only has the Biden administration drawn illegal migrants to enter at their peril by increasingly facilitating their indefinite presence in this country once they make it to this side of the line, but also by providing them with food, shelter, and transportation here. Which brings me to the $41 million in grants to provide them with lawyers in the United States.

Immigration violations can be both criminal and civil offenses. Illegal entry is a misdemeanor as a first offense carrying a maximum sentence of six months, and consequently a charge for that crime does not trigger a constitutional right to counsel. Not that the administration is prosecuting many illegal entrants anyway.

Illegal entry is also a civil violation, which renders the offender removable from the United States. Although section 292 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that aliens in removal proceedings shall have the privilege of being represented, that provision is clear that any such representation shall be at no expense to the Government.

How, then, is the Biden administration providing grants to provide lawyers to aliens facing removal? Good question.

As I explained in July, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure, to the greatest extent practicable that all unaccompanied alien children [UACs] apprehended by DHS have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.

Similar language appeared in the Homeland Security Act (HSA), as well. That said, both the HSA and TVPRA make clear that the provision of such counsel for UACs must be consistent with section 292 of the INA which, as noted, provides for representation, but not at government expense.

Despite this fact, the HHS FY 2022 funding bill provided $300 million for legal services, post-release services, and child advocates for UACs. Whether the $41 million in grants for lawyers to which Fox News refers is part of that funding is unclear from its reporting.

That said, it should not be the policy of the United States government to encourage aliens to enter the United States illegally at their peril, and that is particularly true when it comes to children. But that is exactly what funding schemes of the sort to which Fox News refers do they provide incentives, in the form of paid counsel, drawing aliens to risk life, safety, and dignity to enter illegally.

Not only does such funding provide incentives to would-be migrants, but it also sends out a message to the world that the United States is not serious about enforcing its laws or its borders. Thats even though, as former President Obama explained last September, [W]e're a nation state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that ... as a practical matter, is unsustainable.

Through the end of August, Border Patrol agents have engaged in nearly 20,500 searches and rescues at the Southwest border in FY 2022, more than four times the total during the border emergency in FY 2019. Why are so many aliens risking their lives and the lives of those agents? The Biden administration isnt trying to stop them from coming and, worse, is providing them incentives once they get here. Thats what ties the presidents border policies to the overwhelmed morgues of Maverick County, Texas.

Read more:
Paid Counsel for Illegal Aliens Fills the Morgues of Maverick County - Immigration Blog

The remaining migrants who landed on Marthas Vineyard last month and were temporarily housed at Joint Base Cape Cod have left, the Baker administration said Friday.

A group of 35 primarily Venezuelan migrants was housed at the base in Buzzards Bay as of Tuesday, while another 14 had already left. State officials said then that they planned to transition the remaining individuals to long-term housing with the help of case managers.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said Friday that the sheltering operation at the base is over, with all individuals transitioning into alternative housing or leaving the Commonwealth for opportunities in other states.

The administration is grateful for the collaborative efforts between several state agencies and non-profit providers to ensure each individual received necessary humanitarian resources and access to new housing options, the spokesperson said in a statement.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis organized flights for the migrants to Marthas Vineyard from San Antonio, Texas, a move that has triggered a federal lawsuit, renewed a contentious debate around federal immigration policies, and drawn sharp pushback from both Florida and Massachusetts Democrats.

They landed to the surprise of residents on the island, though locals quickly provided immediate shelter, food, medical services, and eventually, legal assistance. State officials transitioned the group to Joint Base Cape Cod several days after their arrival.

The migrants arrival came as other Republican governors shipped immigrants who crossed the United States border into a southern community to Democratic-led cities or states in the north. The decision to transport the migrants, some of those governors have said, is intended to highlight immigration issues in the south.

But it has drawn the ire of many elected officials, including a swath of politicians in Massachusetts, who say Republicans like DeSantis are using vulnerable humans to score political points.

The lawsuit, filed by Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, alleges a group of five unnamed defendants allegedly rounded up the migrants outside a resource center in San Antonio with the promise of employment and assistance in Massachusetts.

But it was not until they were on the plane, according to the lawsuit, that the migrants were informed that Marthas Vineyard was their destination, not Boston or New York as some said they had been told.

Some of the migrants identified two of the unnamed defendants as Perla and Emanuel. And media reports have named Perla as Perla Huerta, a former counterintelligence official and combat medic.

Bexar County Sheriffs Office in San Antonio is also reportedly investigating Huerta, and attorneys with Lawyers for Civil Rights say they are working to confirm Huerta is the same person as Perla before updating the identity in their lawsuit.

LCR Executive Director Ivn Espinoza-Madrigal said Perla played an integral on-the-ground recruiting role in DeSantis scheme, inducing migrants in San Antonio to fly with false promises of employment, education, and housing.

Once we have verified this information, we plan to amend our complaint to substitute Perlas true name for Doe Defendant #1. She will then be formally served with the complaint and required to respond in federal district court, he said in a statement.

A DeSantis spokesperson previously said the lawsuit is activists using illegal immigrants for political theater.

If these activists spent even a fraction of this time and effort at the border, perhaps some accountability would be brought to the Biden administrations reckless border policies that entice illegal immigrants to make dangerous and often lethal journeys through Central America and put their lives in the hands of cartels and coyotes, the spokesperson said.

Continued here:
Migrants leave Joint Base Cape Cod after landing in Mass. last month - MassLive.com

Company bosses who employ illegal migrants face tougher penalties under plans by Suella Braverman to deter Channel crossings.

The Home Secretary has been stung by French claims that migrants are crossing the Channel because they see Britain as a soft touch where it is easy for illegal migrants to get work in the black economy. Studies have suggested there are as many as 1.2 million unauthorised immigrants in the UK.

She is considering whether tougher fines and longer jail sentences are needed to penalise employers and illegal workers. Company bosses who take on illegal migrants can be jailed for up to five years and pay an unlimited fine under current laws.

She also wants stronger enforcement of the current regulation, after she discovered the number fines being issued for breaches have slumped - just as the number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel has hit a record high of 33,000 so far this year.

Internal data show the number of fines fell from 837 - worth 13.8 million in the first three months of 2016 - to just 152, worth 2.5 million, in the first quarter of this year.

Ms Braverman signalled her intent at this weeks Tory conference, when she pledged to redouble our efforts to go after rule-breaking employers and stamp out illegal working practices.

It is widely believed in France that the reason people come to the UK is that it is easy to work illegally, said a source.

It is not clear whether we are any better or worse than France, but that is their belief.

It is possibly the belief of a lot of illegal migrants. It is very difficult to judge what makes up the pull factors.

The tougher rules come alongside plans for new legislation, due after Christmas, that will bar anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from the right to claim citizenship or to settle in the UK.

The new law will also aim to sweep away obstacles to sending illegal migrants to Rwanda. This will include measures, previously set out in the abandoned Bill of Rights, to stop the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from blocking UK immigration measures.

Read the original here:
Stiff penalties for firms that employ illegal migrants as UK seeks to lose 'soft touch' reputation - The Telegraph

Jeff Sessions, former Alabama senator and attorney general under President Donald Trump, said the current border crisis is allowing more criminals to enter the United States.

You know, in poor countries, they dont keep people in jail for 30, 40 years. Theyre glad to get rid of you. So if youre a child molesterer and the sheriff and the police chief in Honduras knows you, what are you going to do? You got a cousin in Los Angeles, you just go across the border, Sessions said in a Sept. 29 podcast with Mark Krikorian, director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

So I think we are picking up a larger number of criminals than we used to in the immigration system.

Sessions became a polarized figure among conservatives soon after he became attorney general as he recused himself from the Department of Justices Russia collusion investigation.

At the border, Sessions was instrumental in the zero tolerance policy that was enforced for about two months beginning in April 2018. The policy matched immigration law that says if individuals cross the border illegally, they must be detained.

It became known as the family separation policy as several hundred parents were temporarily separated from their children as all adults were detained and prosecuted for entering illegally.

The motivation behind the policy was to halt the catch-and-release scenario that had attracted thousands of illegal immigrants who knew theyd be set free inside the United States, despite the vast majority not being eligible for asylum.

The administration stopped the zero tolerance program on June 20 and later enacted the Remain in Mexico program, which had the effect of dramatically reducing illegal entries. Instead of being released into the United States with a court date years down the road, the program forced illegal border crossers to wait in Mexico until their case had been adjudicated by an immigration judge.

Its difficult to overstate how tough it was for the Trump administration to make progress, Sessions said.

Lawsuits were filed in courts, as Attorney General and we dealt with them. And we defended the presidents actions. And we began to win cases and change policies. And the success was real. And numbers fell. And it was thrown away by [the Biden] administration. What they did exceeds anything imaginable.

President Joe Biden issued a handful of executive orders within hours of taking office on Jan. 20, 2021.

On day one, the administration signed executive orders and issued memos to temporarily suspend deportations of illegal aliens, reverse Trumps ban on travel from terror-prone countries, halt border wall construction, stop adding people to the Remain in Mexico program, preserve and fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and release a sweeping immigration package to Congress that includes amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

Since then, record numbers of illegal aliens from more than 160 countries have crossed the U.S.Mexico border, including more than 2 million in the past year.

Border Patrol agents have reported an additional at least 599,000 illegal aliens to have evaded capture over the past yearalmost 50,000 per month, according to numbers obtained by Fox News.

The ones who evade capture, known as gotaways, are typically assumed to be evading law enforcement because they are either criminals, previously deported, or they know they wont gain legal entry.

During fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol agents arrested 78 illegal aliens along the southern border who are on the U.S. governments terrorist watchlistcompared to three during fiscal year 2020, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Additionally, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 11,000 convicted criminals at the border and a further 836 with warrants for arrest in fiscal year 2022, with one month of data missing. An additional 697 gang members have been arrested at the border.

I have a sense that the whole world is now just learning that its not just Mexicans and Central Americans that can come illegallythey can come here illegally too, Sessions said.

Krikorian said he anticipates more illegal aliens coming in from African nations, the Middle East, and China and India.

Once the door is open, theyll rush through it hoping they get through before we wake up and close it again, he said.

Sessions said Republican lawmakers in Washington need to apply more pressure to secure the border.

What I found was, and said many times, they will vote for most any bill on immigration that sounds good, but if it really works, it never passed, Sessions said.

During Trumps first two years, Republicans controlled both the House and Senate, but failed to pass any legislation that closed immigration law loopholes that were driving most of the illegal entries.

That we have to open our system up to the world, for anybody who wants to come is a colossal disaster. It can never be a legitimate policy of a great nation, Sessions said.

Follow

Read more:
Former AG Jeff Sessions: 'A Larger Number of Criminals' Are Crossing the Border - The Epoch Times

Illegal immigration to Malaysia is the cross-border movement of people to Malaysia under conditions where official authorisation is lacking, breached, expired, fraudulent, or irregular. The cross-border movement of workers has become well-established in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia a major labour-receiving country and Indonesia and the Philippines the region's main labour-sending states. Managing cross-border migration (labour, refugee and human trafficking) has become an issue of increasing concern in Malaysia and its international relations.

The term "illegal", when applied to "migration" and "migrant", has been replaced in recent years by "irregular" and "undocumented"[1] on the grounds that "illegal" is inaccurate, degrading, and prejudicial.[2][3] Key institutions have adopted the new terms: the UN General Assembly (1975), the International Labour Organization (2004), the European Parliament (2009), and the Associated Press (2013)[2] and other US news agencies.[3]

The new terms are rarely used in official and academic discourse in Malaysia, where the popular term is "illegal immigrant".[4] The term "illegals", elsewhere perceived as outdated and pejorative,[5] is regularly used in Malaysian media.[6]

The terminology is also obscure because Malaysian law (Immigration Act 1959/63) does not distinguish between undocumented economic migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and trafficked people; all are designated as illegal immigrants.[7] The term "illegal immigrant" designates a variety of groups who are all liable to arrest, detention and deportation for immigration offences:[4][7][8]

Patterns of migration and the roles and responses of governments in the region concerning migration are rooted in the region's history. Present-day Malaysia has been a migration crossroads, where borders were lacking or permeable.

Malaysia's first generations of migrants were indigenous peoples, the Orang Asli, believed to have been part of the first wave of migration from Africa about 50,000 years ago or more-recent Asian evolution.[9][10]The Malay Peninsula developed from port towns which thrived on trade routes from China to India[10] and hosted the next migrants as merchants settled in the ports, some assimilating into the local communities.[11] By the fifth century AD, networks of these towns had evolved into organised political spheres of influence defined by their centre rather than their borders. At the periphery, control is less certain. Borders may be permeable and control sometimes overlaps; areas might be under several powers, or none.[12]

During the second-century Langkasuka kingdoms, the eighth-century Srivijaya empire and the 15th-century Malacca Sultanate, the centre of power shifted between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. In addition to their link by political rule, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula were also linked by intermarriage between the Sumatran and Peninsular ruling elite (which led to the migration of their followers).

Other significant early migrants are those now classified as Melayu Anak Dagang (non-Malays who migrated to the region and later assimilated into Malay culture, distinct from Melayu Anak Jati: ethnic Malays who are native to the region,[13] including the Minangkabau people from Sumatra and the Bugis people from Sulawesi, Indonesia.[14] Based on Malaysia's long history as a society of migrants, researchers at University Sains Malaysia say: "It is, however, pertinent to put the record straight that migration of people to the artificially created enclave known as Malaysia today dated back to centuries. Malaysia like many ex-colonies is artificial ..."[citation needed]

Researcher Anthony Reid draws another conclusion from this history that Malaysia, like the US and Australia, is best viewed as an immigrant society:[14]

In Malaysia, of course, official ideology requires that 62 percent of the population be regarded as "sons of the soil", defined in racial terms rather than place of birth. But there is also an older pre-nationalist tradition there of understanding Malaya as an immigrant society, and a tendency as in other immigrant societies for the relatively recent migrants in all communities to provide much of the innovative energy and leadership ...

Malaysia, like most of its Southeast Asian neighbours, did not sign the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and maintains that newly-arrived aliens are illegal immigrants rather than refugees.[15] However, since the early 1970s it has allowed Muslims involved in a conflict in their own country (especially the Moro people of the southern Philippines) to seek refuge in Malaysia.[16] In 1975, Malaysia accepted thousands of Cambodian Muslims who had fled the Pol Pot regime. During the Indochina refugee crisis, Malaysia allowed a small number of Cambodian Muslims to immigrate (assisted by the Malaysian Muslim Welfare Organisation, funded by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Malaysian government.[16] In 1980, Malaysia began admitting Rohingya and Acehnese Muslims who were fleeing the persecution in Myanmar and insurgency in Indonesia.[16]

Malaysian Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said in 2015 that his ministry has told the UNHCR several times that "Malaysia is not a signatory to its convention on refugees", and the United Nations should send refugees to another Third-World nation. Jaafar also said that refugees and migrant workers needed to observe Malaysian law in the country.[17] According to Deputy Foreign Minister Reezal Merican Naina Merican,

Although Malaysia doesn't want to become part of the convention, our country will continue to give any assistance needed by the refugees based on humanitarian grounds. Our country only recognised/allowed those (refugees) who registered with UNHCR to seek temporarily shelter in this country before they been moved to another third world countries or return to their place of origin.[18]

According to a National Registration Department (NRD) official, 60,000 illegal immigrants in the east Malaysian state of Sabah received Malaysian identity cards (MyKads);[19] such allegations are known as Project IC. This was done through an ethnic connection to people in certain Malaysian occupations (such as the NRD, politics or security forces). A syndicate from Pakistan has mainly Pakistani clients, and syndicates from Myanmar and Indonesia have their own clients.[20] Filipinos with identity documents brought family members to Sabah.[21][20] An officer of the Eastern Sabah Security Command said that the corruption of local authorities and the issuance of fraudulent identity cards played an important role in the increase of crime in Sabah.[22] Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said that illegal immigrants long resident in Malaysia should not be barred from citizenship.[23][24]

According to researchers Myfel Joseph Paluga and Andrea Malaya Ragragio of the University of the Philippines Mindanao, the flood of migrants from Mindanao to Sabah was partly encouraged by Sabah politicians who "wanted to be the Sultan of Sulu" after the fall of the United Sabah National Organisation (USNO) and Sabah People's United Front (BERJAYA) administrations.[25] Following the rampant Islamisation and Muslims migration led by USNO chief Mustapha Harun, the Muslim population in Sabah drastically increased with negative perception from the native indigenous towards the Islamic religion also increased as it have been endangering the local culture and practice of the indigenous.[26] As part of the Islamisation of Sabah state, Malaysia affords shelter around Sabah to Filipino Muslims escaping from the conflicts between Philippine government and their fellow separatists in their homeland of Mindanao.[16][23][24][27][28][29][30] The Eastern Sabah Security Command Security Coordinating Intelligence Officer said that although the foreigners remained in Sabah, their loyalty to their homeland (Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago) in the Philippines never swayed and they brought drugs, smuggling and piracy. The Filipinos from this region are reportedly vengeful and ill-tempered and disputes often result in shooting and bloody feuds ("a culture they call Rido").[22]

During the influx of the Vietnamese boat people, the Malaysian government felt that they would threaten its national security and racial balance; most refugees resemble Malaysian Chinese, resulting in quick repatriation.[31] The Malaysian government blamed the United States, accusing it of causing the Vietnam War and a massive influx of refugees to Vietnam's neighbours.[31] Some Sabah Muslim MPs and State Assembly members, such as Rosnah Shirlin and Abdul Rahim Ismail, were aware of the Filipino Muslim problem. According to Shirlin,

The refugee camp established in my district has been creating a lot of problems for the residents here. The camp has become a drugs den and the source of many other criminal activities. Over the years, many robberies had taken place in nearby villages and the culprits are mostly from the camp. Supposedly, the improved situation in the Philippines today has brought into question whether these Filipinos could still be regarded as refugees. The camp was set up on a 40-acre plot of land near Kampung Laut in the early 1980s by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). But the UNHCR had long ago stopped providing funds to the camp and as a result, many of these foreigners had been working outside the camp. The refugees had even dared to expand the camp area, encroaching on nearby village land and today, the camp has become the biggest syabu distribution den in my district.[32]

Ismail agreed:

For decades, my village and several villages in my constituency was a beautifully rustic villages of traditional fishermen, who went about their daily lives with no cause for worry except for the latest catch of the day. Sabah's long-standing issues with illegal immigration are starting to irk local communities, who live fearing for their safety and culture. The ambience of the village has changed. The most obvious change now is the security fears in the village where I was born and grew up in. There is a colony of some 50 or so illegal immigrants who are living on a private piece of land that was supposedly rented out to them. The illegal immigrants roam around the village, and the town area, the pump boats they use are becoming a common sight here. I've brought it up to the authorities before; the police, immigration and district office. I appreciate some steps being taken, but it is not enough to give confidence to the local residents. If left unattended, Sabah will be susceptible to a lot of social ills illegal drug dealing and consumption, theft and robbery and a "pump boat culture". The authorities also need to ensure that Sabahan land owners do not rent out their land randomly to anybody and contravening the Sabah Land Ordinance.[33][34]

Abdul Rahim Ismail, Sabah State Legislative Assembly Members for Pantai Manis in Papar

The Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah investigated the granting of citizenship to illegal immigrants. Former National Registration Director Mohd Nasir Sugip said that he was part of a secret operation, Ops Durian Buruk (Operation Rotten Durian),[35] during the early 1990s in which the Election Commission of Malaysia and former Deputy Home Minister Megat Junid Megat Ayub instructed his department to issue national identity cards to foreigners to change Sabah's voting demographics.[36] The names of 16,000 illegal immigrants were changed by the instruction of the Sabah Election Commission.[37] Former Sabah NRD director Ramli Kamarudin said that former Sabah Chief Minister Osu Sukam was present when Megat Junid gave instructions to carry out the project IC exercise.[38]

A Filipino man said that he received an identity card without applying for it,[39] and Indian and Pakistani immigrants said that they received identity cards less than 10 years after they arrived in Sabah during the 1980s.[40] The irregularities reportedly angered Sabahan natives, including those in neighbouring Sarawak.[41] The Christian Dayak people are stateless, without birth certificates, while the newly-arrived illegal immigrants can obtain Malaysian identity cards in a short time.[42] The Malaysian government reportedly favours Muslim asylum-seekers.[43]

In 2008, the Sabah deputy chief minister said that some illegal immigrants attempted to become Malaysian security-force members with fake identity cards.[44] A Sulu militant in Sabah was a Malaysian police corporal with family in the southern Philippines who was believed to have aided militants in illegally entering and leaving the state.[45] A security guard from Tawau in Sabah killed a bank officer in Subang Jaya, Selangor during a robbery. The security guard had a fake identity card,[46] and was later identified as an Indonesian from Sulawesi.[47] Lim Kit Siang asked how the security guard obtained a MyKad, enabling him to work at the bank:

How can this person get a MyKad, and even if the MyKad is fake, how can he be allowed to open up a bank account, receive monthly salary and in fact be given a firearm licence by the Home Ministry? Did this person also vote in the 13th General Election? Is it because the owner of the security firm is a crony of the ruling party? How many foreigners have enjoyed these privileges?[48]

In addition to Sabah, the border in the Straits of Malacca between Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra enabled Indonesian immigrants to illegally enter the country; in 2014, an overloaded migrant boat sank.[49]

Malaysia, Thailand and Venezuela were listed in the third and lowest tier of the US Department of State's 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. The country has made little progress to combat the exploitation of foreign migrant workers subjected to forced labour and those recruited under false pretenses and coerced into sex work.[50] Rohingya refugees, seeking a better life in Malaysia, are frequently victimised by human traffickers who confine, beat and starve them and demand ransoms from their families.[51] Many Filipinas, promised good jobs in other countries by brokers in the Philippines, have been trafficked to Malaysia and are vulnerable to detention by Malaysian authorities for illegal entry.[52] Vietnamese and Chinese traffickers have shifted their prostitution rings to Malaysia, making Vietnamese women the largest number of foreign prostitutes in the country[53] (followed by Cambodian women).[54][failed verification] Traffickers usually offer victims good-paying jobs in Malaysia; when they meet a trafficker (posing as a manager), they are imprisoned, raped and forced into sex work.[55][56] Chinese traffickers kidnapped children, maimed them and used them to beg in the streets of Kuala Lumpur.[57][58]

Malaysia is an electrical-parts manufacturing centre, and large companies such as Panasonic and Samsung (as well as the McDonald's fast-food chain) were accused of poor treatment of workers.[59][60] Cambodian housemaids have reportedly been poorly treated,[61][62] and a Cambodian maid detained in a Malaysian immigration centre said that she saw three Cambodian and Vietnamese women die after severe abuse; Thai, Indonesian and Laotian prisoners were also reportedly abused.[63] This however refuted by Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed who said the matter has been investigated and no deaths are actually occurred.[64] Nevertheless, a Malaysian couple were sentenced to death for starving their Cambodian maid to death.[65][66]

Child-selling is ongoing, with babies brought from countries such as Thailand and Cambodia. Some are bought by infertile couples, but the less fortunate are sold to traffickers and forced to become sex slaves or beggars.[67] Prostitution rings also offer babies from their foreign sex workers who become pregnant; some sex workers contact couples to offer their babies, since Malaysian law forbids migrant workers from having children in the country.[68]

In 1986, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) attempted to integrate Filipino refugees in Sabah with local communities if it could not repatriate them to the Philippines; however, this was opposed by the Sabah state government and local residents.[69][70] The UNHCR tried a similar solution in 2015, issuing refugee cards in West Malaysia without government approval.[71]

The Immigration Department of Malaysia has promised that Malaysia will be free from illegal immigrants in 2020.[72]

In 2011, Malaysia introduced Program 6P to reduce the number of illegal immigrants. The 6P is shorthand for six Malay words beginning with p: pendaftaran (registration), pemutihan (legalisation), pengampunan (amnesty), pemantauan (supervision), penguatkuasaan (enforcement) and pengusiran (deportation).[73] Illegal immigrants were given three weeks to accept the offer or face legal penalties if found without a valid travel document or work permit.[74] There was a call to strengthen the programme by monitoring management companies appointed as intermediaries between employers and illegal foreign workers.[75]

Malaysian authorities have frequently cracked down on illegal immigrants (sometimes without notice), with more frequent enforcement since 2014.[76] Illegal immigrants are imprisoned, caned and deported.[77] In early 2017, a former employee of the Malaysian Registration Department (JPN) was sentenced to 156 years in prison for giving illegal citizenship to Filipino immigrants in Sabah.[78]

A joint border commission has been formed with the Philippines to patrol from the southern Philippines to East Malaysia,[79] and Thailand has agreed to lengthen its border wall along the Malaysian state of Kedah to curb the flow of illegal workers across the MalayThai border.[80] Spanish Ambassador to Malaysia Mara Bassols Delgado has urged the country to develop closer ties with other ASEAN nations to solve the immigrant problem: "Close understanding between Asean countries would result in a more effective approach to identify the individuals who entered the country illegally and without identification papers. This would facilitate the process of sending them back to their countries of origin".[81] Malaysia received two Bay-class patrol boats from Australia in 2015, and said that the vessels would be used to protect their maritime borders from illegal migration across the Straits of Malacca.[82] Before a November 2016 meeting between Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Putrajaya, both leaders agreed to deport illegal Filipino migrants and refugees in Sabah back to the Philippines and signed agreements to improve the social conditions of legal Filipino migrants and expatriates in the state with a school, hospital, and consulate.[83] That month, Thai Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan announced a plan to replace the southern MalayThai border fence with a wall; Wongsuwan got the idea from a meeting in Laos with his Malaysian counterparts.[84]

More:
Illegal immigration to Malaysia - Wikipedia