Liew, who is Tawau MP, said she was eager to see a solution by the government over Sabah’s perennial immigrant problem.

“Malaysians in Sabah want to see tangible results and look forward to firm action on the part of the federal government to resolve this long-standing issue in the state,” she said here today.

“We hope the announcement is not just another promise in view of the upcoming 15th general election.”

Words, she said, must be equated with concrete action.

“The government must prove its sincerity in wanting to help Sabah deport the thousands of undocumented migrants back to their countries of origin.

“Otherwise, to say there will be no compromise on undocumented migrants may become a cliché because we have been hearing this common expression from national leaders for decades since the influx of so-called economic refugees and migrants in the 1970s,” Liew said.

Hamzah said yesterday his ministry and the Sabah government had decided to take firm action and would no longer compromise in dealing with undocumented migrants in the state.

He added that the move would include deporting them from Sabah, as had been done to more than 600,000 Filipino and Indonesian migrants since 1990.

Liew said she was also concerned with a report from the Statistics Department earlier this week that estimated Sabah’s population for 2021 to be around 3.91 million, with more than one million non-citizens.