PBS worried ‘real Sabahans’ may become refugees if illegal immigrants get ICs

Part of a crowd is seen gathering in Kampung Air to get application forms to change IMM13 documents to MyPR documents.

KOTA KINABALU: Worried “real Sabahans” will one day become refugees if citizenship is offered to illegal immigrants by syndicates, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) has urged Sabahans to become the eyes and ears of the authorities.

PBS deputy president Radin Malleh told the media today that he was aware of several claims that certain quarters were busy issuing MyKads and giving citizenship to IMM13 holders and illegal immigrants.

The IMM13 is a special renewable visiting pass that allows holders to stay in Sabah.

“This matter should be taken seriously and all real Sabahans must cooperate with one another and report the matter to the relevant authorities, including the police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), National Registration Department (NRD) or even directly to the courts,” he said.

Malleh said the crime of giving citizenship to illegal immigrants, which started decades ago, had drastically changed Sabah’s demography, making real Sabahans the minority in their own land.

If these “treacherous activities”, similar to the earlier Projek IC, persist, he is worried that future generations of real Sabahans would find themselves becoming refugees.

He said this was because in a democratic system, the majority votes would count in an election and the big number of new citizens could well be the contributing factor in determining who would be the government.

Malleh’s comment comes in the wake of an alleged police report, together with pictures of a business premise offering services to change IMM13 documents to MyPR documents (Red IC) in Kampung Air here, went viral on Tuesday.

In the report, it was alleged that the company charged each applicant RM40 for its service in preparing statutory declaration letters to enable them to change their IMM13 document to MyPR document. - FMT