KOTA KINABALU: The Federal Government has been asked to "welcome" the thousands of undocumented people in Sabah if it wants to legalise their presence in this country.

       Parti Kerjasama Anak Negeri (Anak Negeri) pro-tem president Datuk Henrynus Amin (pic) also said that instead of allowing Sabah to continue carrying the burden of housing the illegal immigrants many of which had been there for decades.

       He said having them illegally in Sabah was already a violation of Immigration laws, whereas allowing them to continue living here for generations was also illegal.

       He said the proposal to legalise their presence here by giving them special documentation without due process had no constitutional basis and was a direct contravention of the Immigration Act 1966.

       Henrynus also said it was against the provisions and spirit of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

       In urging the Federal and state governments to scrap this proposal altogether, Henrynus said that the law on immigration was clear that no foreign citizen was allowed to enter, stay, live or work in Malaysia without a valid travel document and a proper work permit.

       "Those in violation of the law should be arrested and deported to their countries of origin, not rewarded with dubious backdoor identity documents," he said.

       He said the problem of illegal immigration could be resolved by getting all foreigners to apply for passports to be issued by their countries of origin and then giving them work permits.

       Henrynus said thousands of Filipino workers without papers had obtained Philippines passports on their own through the Philippines visiting consular office or embassy officials based in Kuala Lumpur.

       "Paperless Indonesians too can apply for Indonesian passports at the Indonesian consular office in Kota Kinabalu,” he said.

       He also claimed that many Filipino workers with families who had been in Sabah for 20 years or more were returning voluntarily to the Philippines to put their children through school.

       He said if the Federal Government was sincere in resolving the problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah, Malaysian immigration laws must be enforced and applied without fear or favour by compelling undocumented foreign nationals to apply for passports from their home countries.

       Henrynus said Sabahans had no objection to the issuance of work permits to foreign workers with the necessary travel documents.

       He said the justification made by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin that foreigners who had been staying in Sabah for 30 years did not know their country of origin was unacceptable.

       Henrynus said that if the Home Minister were to force the issuance of identity cards to hundreds of thousands of paperless foreigners in Sabah, then he must allow these illegals and their dependents to relocate and settle in Peninsular Malaysia for good.

       This came after Hamzah said in a press conference that foreigners who had been living in Sabah for many years were to be issued a special card for identification.

       Hamzah said this was a follow-up to a proposal by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor during a meeting on the management of foreigners in Sabah.

       He said the move will help provide identification to foreigners who had lived in Sabah for years, in fact, generations but do not have any documentation.