KUALA LUMPUR: The Immigration Department has issued 81,000 refugee status documents (IMM13 document) as of 2009 to illegal immigrants to enable then to move freely without travelling passes in Sabah and Labuan. the Dewan Rakyat was told yesterday.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said the documents were only given to two groups of illegal immigrants in Sabah namelyIndonesian Chinese refugees and refugees of the civil war in the southern Philippines.
“The provision of the documents to the two groups of refugees were made on humantarian grounds and they were given passport exemption by the government to live temporary in Sabah and Labuan,” he said when replying to a question by Datuk Marcus Mojigoh (BN-Putatan), who wanted to know the total number of foreigners who hade been issued the IMM13 document.
Nazri said there were six schemes for settling the refugees from the southern Philippines as developed by UNHCR and gazetted by the Sabah state government. — Bernama