ILLEGAL immigrants in Sabah are not being given citizenship documents through programmes to reissue birth certificates and MyKads meant for local indigenous people, said Sabah’s National Registration Department (NRD).

Its director, Ismail Ahmad, said it was also unlikely that the department would issue identity cards and Malaysian citizenship documents to illegal immigrants by mistake.

“The Sabah NRD has set up a mobile registration unit to deal with stateless persons located in far-flung rural areas since 2000.

“At present, the unit is carrying out scheduled visits to areas like Nabawan, Pensiangan, Pegalungan and Banggi Island, where the indigenous communities comprise largely Murut, Paitanic and Dusun (folk).

“In the case of victims who lost their documents in natural disasters, Sabah NRD will immediately have their documents replaced after checks with the department’s database,” he said at the Federal Administrative Complex in Kota Kinabalu today.

He added that at present, 2.8 million indigenous people are registered in the Sabah NRD database.

The Sabah NRD had recently come under fire from certain parties claiming that the department could have mistakenly given out citizenship documents to the migrants, especially if the programme was carried out in haste.

Ismail assured said that today’s technology and stringent process sufficed to ensure no illegal immigrants would ever mistakenly acquire citizenship.

For instance, he said the screening for late birth registrations, among others, included interviews between the claimant and trained officers.

“They will look survey their physical features and age, and make age comparisons to determine whether the claim is legitimate.

“Over the years, there have been cases of Sabahans trying to register migrant children through our mobile unit, but failed.” 

He added there had been attempts in Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan and Tawau, in which indigenous communities have tried to adopt migrant children.

But the numbers of such cases are minimal, he said.

Besides, Ismail said the NRD had also introduced the green and red birth certificates, with green meant for citizens and red for immigrants.

The mobile unit has, over the past 18 years, processed 46,918 birth registrations in the Sabah indigenous communities.

In the case of victims who lost their documents in natural disasters, Ismail insisted the NRD only replaced documents that were destroyed.

“We will check our database and if their profile checks out, we will issue MyKads and birth certificates right away.

“With the present technology, it only takes us about half an hour to issue MyKads,” he said.

Ismail, meanwhile, advised community leaders to come forward to the NRD if they found any more stateless individuals in their respective areas.

He said the process of registering stateless persons would be continuous.

“I am also a Sabahan. I will not do anything to jeopardise Sabah’s security.” – January 25, 2019.