The immigration Department announcement about removing illegal immigrants is welcome in principle. Illegal immigrants are very often subject to exploitation by criminal employers and nowhere in Malaysia is this more true than in East Malaysia. That region has seen, under BN rule, a huge influx of labourers from Indonesia and elsewhere, forced by poverty at home to seek work abroad. Only to find themselves worse exploited than in their homeland.

Worse still the criminal BN government permitted many of these Indonesians to acquire so-called MyKads, effectively legalising their presence AND allowing them to vote.

That is something that the Immigration Department could and should be focussing on.  Furthermore, while it fits the standard pattern of bureaucracy, the removal procedure, and its costs, are hardly relevant in the matter of removing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from East Malaysia and the DG should take another and more profound look at that part of his duties.