'Legalise undocumented migrants, not just give them Covid-19 vaccine'

 

The plan to administer the Covid-19 vaccine on undocumented migrants should also come with an initiative to legalise them, Tanah Rata assemblyperson Chiong Yoke Kong (above, holding microphone) said.

He made the call after Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin gave his assurance that the government, in order to achieve herd immunity, would not arrest undocumented migrants who come forward for the vaccination.

Chiong, who is also the DAP Youth deputy chief, said while we welcomed the assurance, a legalisation campaign would be more convincing and can also resolve the issue of undocumented migrants once and for all.

"It is important to note that Khairy’s verbal assurance may not be able to convince all undocumented foreign workers and their employers from participating in the vaccination programme.

"That is because the power to take action against undocumented foreign workers is limited to the Immigration Department and police under the Home Ministry.

"As such, some employers and migrant workers might be worried that the government might talk the talk but not walk the talk, due to uncoordinated government responses," Chiong said in a statement.

He added that if the government did not legalise the undocumented migrants who have been vaccinated, it will be difficult to track them to determine whether the virus was still spreading and whether the vaccine had been effective.

Undocumented migrant workers arrested in Petaling Jaya in the middle of last year.

He also stressed that any legalisation exercise should not be an excuse to profit off undocumented migrants, as previous schemes have done.

"In the past, the government implemented various legalisation or re-employment schemes many times with the hope of solving the problem.

"However, due to various obstacles such as red tape and high costs, such legalisation or re-employment schemes did not bring about intended positive outcomes.

"On the contrary, the more foreign workers were legalised, the more of them were brought into the country.

"In the end, such schemes only benefitted a small bunch of well-connected private companies and corrupt government officials who seized profit unscrupulously," he said.

Chiong said the government should use the immunisation exercise as an opportunity for simplified legalisation to fundamentally resolve the issue.

He pointed out that there is an estimated 3.5 million undocumented migrants in Malaysia and many of them working in the manufacturing and construction industries have caught Covid-19.

"Some of the main reasons include the generally poor living conditions of many foreign workers as well as limited access to medical services.

"Therefore, vaccinating all foreign workers, regardless of whether they are documented, is the key to ensure that the goal of herd immunity can be achieved," Chiong added. - Mkini