THE Immigration Department told a Malaysian to “repent” after rejecting his MyTravelPass application to visit his same-sex partner overseas.

The applicant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Malaysian Insight that the department rejected his application on grounds of “Others: Mohon bawa bertaubat” or “Please repent”.

A copy of the rejection dated February 4 from the [email protected] email was sent to The Malaysian Insight.

The Malaysian Insight has written to the Immigration Department but has yet to receive a reply at the time of publication.

“I’m not 100% sure if I have implied that I’m from the LGBTQ community in my applications. But my application includes a letter of invitation signed by my partner, a relationship declaration from the country I’m going to, me and my partner’s bank statements, details of the visa I have applied for and a supporting document from the country’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur,” said the applicant.

As in his previous applications, he also disclosed his partner’s details in the latest application, including his passport, flight itineraries and pictures of both of them with their families.

“For the country I’m going to, relationship declarations are mandatory to enter the country.

“Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes I disclose my partner’s details. In these applications, I included his passport, stamps of us travelling together, our travel tickets, and our pictures together with my family when he stayed with us.”

The 21-year-old undergraduate said he had applied between 10 and 20 times since March last year when the government shut down the borders because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“But all the applications have been rejected. The previous applications were rejected with the reasons ‘unsupported documents’ or ‘unnecessary travel’. But this is quite common as other applicants get it, too.

“But this is the first time the rejection came with the message ‘Mohon bawa bertaubat’,” said the applicant, who was planning to go to Europe.

Other singles received approvals even though they submitted the same documents with the same intention of leaving the country, he said.

Applicants for the MyTravelPass, which was introduced last July, can include any type of supporting documents, said the student. 

Although the MTP is more efficient than using email, often the Immigration Department only stated the reason for rejection without elaborating.

“The decisions are sometimes random, too, as some applicants submit the same documents more than once and are approved in one of them. The reasons can be vague too: when they put ‘unsupported documents’, we don’t really know which one it is.” – February 9, 2021.