In a statement, Beruas MP Ngeh Koo Ham disputed the claim by home minister Hamzah Zainudin that more than 145,000 illegal foreign workers had been legalised.
According to Ngeh, the home ministry allowed only two categories of illegal or undocumented foreign workers to be made legal.
He said that under the first category, employers were allowed to legalise foreign workers who were already under their employment, while in the second category, new hirings may only be taken from the immigration depots.
He questioned how employers could prove a foreign worker was under their employment if said worker was “illegal or undocumented”.
“This makes such a scenario to legalise the foreign worker almost impossible,” he said of the first category.
“Under the second category, the home minister requires those who intend to hire illegal immigrants from the immigration depots to finance the repatriation of another illegal immigrant from these detention centres on a one-to-one ratio.
“This means that for an employer to hire a worker from these depots, they have to finance the repatriation of another illegal immigrant back to his/her country.”
According to Ngeh, what makes matters worse is the home ministry’s insistence that all applications to legalise foreign workers are submitted to its office in Putrajaya.
He said he received many complaints from employers who had submitted their applications to legalise illegal or undocumented workers but they have yet to receive any reply from the home ministry.
Ngeh said the human resources ministry and the home ministry must wake up from their slumber and address this issue immediately.
Recently, Hamzah claimed that a total of 145,830 illegal immigrants had been registered under the Labour Recalibration Programme and the Return Recalibration Programme since they were implemented in November last year.
“Many (among the public) have the perception that there are many undocumented individuals in our country. However, when we implemented these new programmes, we realised that it was merely a perception.
“This shows that all this while, the Immigration Department had been doing its work through deportations and operations, and that the dedicated service by these officers is something we can be proud of,” he said.