He wants the state to resolve the issue of illegally issued identity cards (ICs) first.

He said in the past hundreds of thousands of ICs had been issued illegally, or through the back door, adding this matter should be addressed before providing aid to stateless children.

“With this proposed exercise, there will be new blue ICs for such stateless children and newly-arrived foreigners.

“This will be in the hundreds of thousands. Ultimately the exercise will be a tremendous gain for the people who are now stateless and illegal, towards becoming the dominant group in Sabah,” Jeffrey said here today.

Shafie had recently said children born in Sabah, one of whose parents was a local, would be given aid through a legalisation programme to ensure a better future for them.

He rubbished allegations that the government was trying to provide illegal immigrants with identity cards.

On the other hand, Jeffrey, who is also the Keningau MP, claimed he had received countless inquiries from people who were concerned about the proposal, questioning the real intention of the plan.

Jeffrey said, under the plan, an illegal immigrant parent issued a blue IC could be called a Malaysian. “And the children of illegally-issued blue IC holders will now be Malaysians,” he claimed.

“There are a huge number of such people in Sabah, while the actual number of real locals who got married to undocumented foreigners is actually minuscule.

“But when the opposition voices concern, he (Shafie) calls it ‘baseless accusation’. Why is he not focusing on the more pressing problems of Sabah such as our dire economic situation?

Jeffrey said the people who had met him to express their concern about this proposal had said they might resort to holding public demonstrations if the proposal was not withdrawn.