THE issuance of a special Sabah identity card as proposed by many Sabah political parties to resolve the state’s long-standing illegal migrant woes is not practical, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong said.

Liew said the issuance will only make things complicated.

“If Sabah plans to ask for that, then what will happen if the other states like Sarawak also ask for the same thing? This will become complicated.

“At this point, it is best for the state government to identify the illegal immigrants and come up with a formula to resolve this problem,” the federal minister-in-charge of law said during the opening of the new Sabah court complex in Kota Kinabalu.

Also present were Chief Justice Richard Malanjum and the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak David Wong, as well as top officials from the Public Works Department and the various judicial bodies in the country.

The issuance of a separate identity card was proposed in the wake of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah as one of the steps to identify “genuine Sabahans”.

Parti Bersatu Sabah, Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Solidariti) and Sabah Progressive Party have been vocal on calling for the reissuance of these separate ICs.

In February this year, Warisan deputy president and Penampang MP Darell Leiking had called for the immediate issuance of the Sabah ICs to curb the Islamic State threat and migrants who had benefited from the “Projek IC”.

Based on police records, Islamist militants from various parts of the world had been using Sabah as a transit point to reach the southern Philippines during the five-month-long armed conflict in Marawi last year. – August 9, 2018.