Legalising undocumented migrants for workforce a stupid idea, says minister

Legalising illegal immigrants for the workforce is a “stupid” idea, Human Resources Minister M Saravanan said today.

The Tapah MP said the best action would be to deport the illegal immigrants to their original country so that there would be no issues, especially involving Malaysia’s labour force.

“It is a ‘stupid’ idea to give. When someone comes illegally to your country, you must deport them, not legalise them. If illegals come to your country (and) you legalise them, then that means we will have more and more illegals coming to the country.

“We should not do anything that encourages illegals to come to our country,” he told a press conference after launching an event in Kota Kinabalu.

He also voiced concern over migration, especially involving young people from Sabah to other states in search of better economic opportunities.

He said in 2020 alone, 45,900 people from Sabah migrated out of the state.

“The ministry is committed to working with all parties in Sabah to develop and implement policies that can attract high-value investments and create new opportunities for skilled talents and knowledge workers in the state.

“The ministry will continue to introduce initiatives that can help Sabahans to upskill, reskill, cross-skill and multi-skill through our agency HRD Corp. This will be complemented by programmes implemented by the Social Security Organisation, Skills Development Fund Corporation and TalentCorp,” he said.