Will it or won’t it? Malaysia hours away from long-delayed crackdown on illegal aliens
With the March 1 deadline for illegal aliens to leave Malaysia without penalty only hours away, Asian media is covering just about every angle of the drama. Two of the countries most affected are Indonesia and the Philippines. Both have tried to persuade Malaysia to postpone or scale back the massdeportation. Indonesia also introduced a wild card by threatening to hire lawyers in Malaysia to sue Malaysian employers who owe Indonesians back pay. At the same time, Indonesia seems to have resigned itself to the inevitability of the crackdown. The Philippines has stepped up efforts to help its citizens take advantage of the Malaysian amnesty and seek re-entrance as legal workers.
The crackdown will be spearheaded by a paramilitary volunteer organization called Rela. Newly introduced rules gives Rela the authority to “enter any premises they [suspect] illegal immigrants [to be] hiding in,” even without a warrant. The Rela is reported to have about 340,000 members. They will be supported by another 150,000 or so police officers, and immigration officers.
On a side note, Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak (or Najib, for short) recently claimed that the country did superstar golfer Vijay Singh a favor by not granting him permanent residence.
America actually conducted similar sweeps in the 1930’s and 1950’s, officially known as Operation Wetback, but nowadays it is pretty much free reign for the estimated 20 million illegal aliens residing in the United States, at enormous cost to American citizens, workers, and tax payers.
