Francis shows a copy of his citizenship application receipt and his birth certificate.
MIRI (Sept 8): Francis Imannuel was 13 when he submitted an application for Malaysian citizenship under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution.
Today the 21-year-old, who just completed his Foundation in Arts at a local university, is in limbo as his application to the National Registration Department (JPN) is still pending.
“I was actually planning to pursue my tertiary education at the same university end of this month. However, I guess I might need to put the plan on hold until I resolve this matter,” he said in an interview yesterday.
Originally from Long Ikang, Baram, he was born on March 22, 2001 at Miri Hospital to Malaysian Immanuel Daud@Immanuel Lah Daud and Indonesian Margeretta Sukang.
Francis is the youngest of the couple’s four children.
“All my siblings are Malaysian citizens except for me. I am puzzled as to why my citizenship application has yet to be approved,” he said.
Francis said he has gone to JPN Miri several times to follow up on his application status.
He also claimed that during his last visit, an officer told him to submit a late MyKad application.
He added that he had also contacted the Home Ministry and was asked to send an enquiry via email.
“I did send an email to the address that they gave me on May 6, 2019. However, until today, I have not received any reply from them, nor did I ever receive calls from the Home Ministry or JPN regarding the status of my application,” he said.
Yesterday, he again checked his application status through http://sspk.jpn.gov.
“The result was that my application is still being processed. Why are they taking so long to look into my application and respond to it?” he questioned.