by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, January 16, 1986:
Deportation of 9,000 illegal Indonesian immigrants in Johore, the ‘black area’ State with the largest illegal Indonesians, is a mere drop in the ocean and is nothing for the authorities to be proud about
Johore State Immigration Director, Abu Kassim Abu Jamil, said yesterday that the Johore State Immigration Department deported more than 9,000 Indonesian illegal immigrants last year.
He probably wants the people to be impressed and grateful for the number of Indonesian illegals deported from Johore last year.
There is nothing for the authorities to be proud about this figure, for considering that Johore is the ‘black are’ state in Malaysia with the largest illegal Indonesian immigrant population, where the people are suffering the greatest fear about the safety of their life and property at the wave of illegal Indonesian immigrant crimes, the deportation of 9,000 illegals is a mere drop in the ocean- too few, too slow, and even too late!
Thirty per cent of the 9,000 Indonesian illegals would probably have returned to Malaysia the same day or the next day after the deportation, and the overwhelming majority of the rest would have by now returned to Malaysia. In actual fact, the same illegal Indonesian immigrant would have probably appeared as a statistic in the 9,000 figure many times.
Furthermore, 9,000 illegals in Johore represent at most a few per cent of the total illegal Indonesian immigrant population in the State.
In Port Dickson recently, when an illegal Indonesian youth died, a few thousand of illegal Indonesian immigrants from the surrounding estates, construction sites, turned out for the funeral, giving the people bf Port Dickson the shock of their life at the magnitude of illegal Indonesian immigrants in their midst.
Despite the announcement by Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Musa Hitam, of expansion of the Task Force VII to deal with illegal Indonesian immigrants, the efforts put in by the government to stamp out the menace and spectre of the problem of illegal Indonesian immigrants appear more cosmetic than basic, and more designed for publicity than to solve the problem, with on eye to the coming general elections.
The DAP calls on the government to show that it has the political will to designate the problem of illegal Indonesian immigrants as one of the most serious national problems, and to get the entire people and nation involved and committed to solve this problem. The DAP is prepared to give the government the fullest support, and proposals and ideas which would effectively stamp and root out the problem of illegal Indonesian immigrants.