The Immigration Crackdown Begins

Kuala Lumpur (VOCR) 21 Nov: The immigration operation over refugees and asylum seekers has been arresting and detaining recognized refugees in a wide sweep across Malaysia. According to reports received from Chin community, the areas that have recently been concentrated on are, Seremban City, Negeri Sembilan State, the eastern part of Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh City, Kedah State, the northern part of Kuala Lumpur and Kepong, the suburban area of Kuala Lumpur, Selangor State.

In the ten total arrests that VOCR could get the details of, six Chin refugees were nabbed in Seremban City and all of them were directly sent to Lenggeng immigration detention center. Among six arrestees, including one woman, only two are registered refugees with the office of UNHCR. Although there is hope for their release soon, the rest will be facing indefinite detention and need the immediate intervention of UNHCR. A man who is still unregistered and was arrested in Ipoh city is now being detained in Lengkap immigration detention center.

Three people, including one woman, captured in Kepong, the suburban area of Kuala Lumpur are currently being detained in Seri Hatamas Jalan Duta Desa Immigration complex lockup. They will be in court in a few days and the authorities will call on the UNHCR office in an attempt to check whether they are of genuine refugees.

The immigration authority in the raids obviously question people arrested whether or not they did fingerprinting in 6p programme in the past few months. Of all arrestees, they are just yet to be done with it in the near future. The programme is slated to start in early of 2012 but it is prompted for the time being that many people both recognised refugee and asylum seeker will possibly be swept over as the crackdown is already commenced.

One of the community volunteers from the Chin Refugee Committee in Kuala Lumpur believes it is certain that they will sooner or later be sent to a detention center and perhaps face months of detention.

“By learning the areas targeted,” he added, “the immigration authorities start raiding restaurants which they believe are dominated by Myanmar refugees and migrant workers.”  

With the immigration crackdown beginning, the Chin community fears for the displacement of thousands of family members still waiting in queue for registration from the office of the UNHCR. 

Meanwhile, registration with the UNHCR office based on family relationships for the purposes of family reunification continues to move incredibly slow, a situation creating both fear and panic among thousands of refugees in Malaysia.

Reporting by Simon