Ismail (right) and Musa (left) during an interview, yesterday.
KOTA KINABALU: There are about 500,000 inland foreigners in Sabah, said State National Registration Department (NRD) director Datuk Ismail Ahmad.
The inland foreigners which comprises IMM13 holders, temporary residents, settlement card holders (Burung-burung certificate, JKM), census certificate, Pala’u and stateless children, caused bigger problems to the state authorities compared to the illegal immigrants, he said.
In his speech at the legal dialogue with members of parliament and Sabah state assemblymen at the Pacific Sutera Harbour Resort here yesterday, he said when the inland foreigners, who are stateless, were apprehended by the authorities, they could not be sent back to their respective countries as their citizenship was denied by the countries.
Ismail also said it was difficult to keep track of these people’s documents as they were not registered with the department and their deaths were not recorded as well.
Another big issue that Ismail highlighted was on children without citizenship, which arose from illegal marriage and marriage involving people with no legal documents.
Ismail showed recent NRD statistics data which recorded that currently there are 2,894,984 people in Sabah, where 44,482 of them are permanent residents while the rest, 24,605 were temporary residents.
Meanwhile, State Immigration Department director Datuk Musa Sulaiman said during the dialogue session that there were 99,055 registered IMM13 pass holders where only about 50,000 renewed their pass annually.
He said there had been no study made to find out the whereabouts of the remaining IMM13 pass holders.