N Surendran, an adviser for rights group Lawyers for Liberty, said it was “untenable and bizarre” for home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to make such a statement as no part of the law requires this.

Utusan Malaysia had recently reported Saifuddin as saying the government would allow citizenship for abandoned babies through registration, but only for babies with their umbilical cords intact.

He said those without their cords or older stateless children may apply for citizenship through registration.

Surendran said the requirement appeared to be a criterion “imposed at the whims of the home ministry”.

“It is a misstatement of the law that the minister has no right to make. This kind of thinking also reflects the ministry’s mindset, which appears to exclude foundlings and children from citizenship,” Surendran, a former PKR MP, said in a statement.

He said replacing the present automatic citizenship for abandoned babies with citizenship through registration would cause a huge backlog, and that the rejection or delay of thousands of applications would create a new generation of stateless people, pushing children to the margins of society.

“This is cruel and of no benefit to the country’s economy or interests. It will throw thousands of stateless children into an existence in the gutters, bereft of the educational and employment benefits citizenship brings,” he said.

Last year, the government proposed eight amendments to citizenship provisions in the Federal Constitution, which included the granting of citizenship to stateless children and foundlings.

The amendment seeks to modify the law that grants citizenship to every stateless person born in the country.

Many groups have decried the amendment, saying it may block the pathway to citizenship for stateless children and foundlings.