Effective ‘social network of informants’ helping illegals

According to the findings of a 2010 research, "insider information made it difficult for any law, no matter how strict" to prevent immigrants from Sabah.

KOTA KINABALU: A senior lecturer on Social Science in University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) said that it was next to impossible to stop illegal immigrants from entering Sabah.

Dr Dayang Suria Mulia said a study commissioned by WWF in 2010, on several islands in Semporna had indicated due to the extensive social networking among the immigrants no amount of enforcement could stop them from coming into Sabah.

“The respondents interviewed said that they are motivated to come to Sabah because of several factors, including geographical and economical.

“They also said that they have an extensive network in Sabah through which they obtained information about the opportunities in the state.

“Most of the respondents said that they have relatives living in Sabah and will use the information obtained from these people to mitigate their entry into Sabah.

“According to these migrants they will be told about the how to avoid detection by Malaysian security authorities when entering the Sabah.

“The information includes the known ‘jalan tikus’ and other backdoor entries.

“This insider information makes it difficult for any law, no matter how strict, to prevent immigrants from entering the state,” Dayang told the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) here yesterday.

She testified that there was a “fine line” between being a legal and illegal immigrant in Sabah.

“We do not want to generalize but some of the respondents we interviewed said that they are not worried being an illegal.

“In fact some prefer to be undocumented as they feel that the status is more flexible,” she said.

She cited as an example those working as domestic helps, who she said were more concerned about their wages than whether or not they were legitimate.

Dayang who has published her finds, said that in 2009 and 2010, there were many undocumented domestic help in Sabah.

While some had just arrived in the state others had been in Sabah for a while.

When asked by RCI chairman Justice Steve Shim about the recommendations from her finds, Dayang said most were implemented by the government.