Malaysia on Wednesday announced that the legalisation process for thousands of illegal immigrants will commence from next month, a move which is expected to benefit a number of Indian workers employed in this country.


The legalisation and amnesty exercise, which was earlier supposed to kick off on July 11, was postponed by the Home Ministry on Monday to make way for the biometric registration of those foreign workers who were already legally employed in the country.

It will begin in August, Ministry Secretary-General Mahmood Adam said in a press statement.

Mahmood said that with the biometric registration, the Immigration Department will be able to identify legal foreign workers, who ran away from their employers.

Those identified would not be allowed to take part in the legalisation process and would be advised to return to their original employers, or be deported through the expulsion process.

The biometric registration is proposed to be completed by July 31, Mahmood was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

The legalisation process was postponed in the wake of reports that Home Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein was not satisfied with some of the plans regarding the programme and wanted to complete the biometric registration on priority basis.

The move is seen as a major step towards checking illegal immigration, amid reports that unscrupulous agents were duping illegal workers by charging between RM 300 (over Rs 4,400) and RM 5000 (Rs 73,800) to register them.

Malaysia relies heavily on foreign labour, including those from India to help out in various sectors, such as plantation, restaurants and construction.

Currently, some 1.8 million legal foreign workers are working under Malaysian employers.