By Teh Athira Yusof, Aliza Shah
Straits Times | 29 July 2018
ENFORCEMENT agencies that vowed to rid the country of all illegal immigrants must recognise the actual number out there to address this problem once and for all, said those in direct contact with labour-intensive economic sectors.
The number, they said, was far more than 600,000 that the Immigration Department had set out to nab after the June 30 deadline last year. That was the time when the department expected employers to legalise their illegal workers under the E-kad programme, which began on Feb 15 last year. They revealed that there were at least two illegal workers for every one that industry players employed legally.