According to the UNESCO, the term migration can be defined as the crossing of the boundary of a political or administrative unit for a certain minimum period of time, in which it includes the movement of refugees, displaced persons, uprooted people as well as economic migrant (Social and Human Sciences: Migrant/Migration 2013, para. 1 of 7). On the other hand, The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Migrants also exemplifies a migrant worker as a "person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national '(Social and Human Sciences: Migrant/Migration 2013, para. 2 of 7). In this relation, it is worthy to note that Malaysia since gaining its independence, has implemented a lot of economic development and structural plans which resulted in Malaysia to be one of the successful developing countries in the world. In achieving this feat, a lot of foreign labours were being utilised to overcome the shortage of local skilled workers. The convergence of foreign labours into Malaysia especially from Indonesia has been happening since the 1980's and has been increasing significantly in the 1990's (McCall 1991; Hugo 1993). According to the latest statistics by the Immigration Department of Malaysia there are approximately 1,016,908 of legal foreign workers/labours in Malaysia and at the same time the numbers of illegal workers/labours (irregular migrants) are estimated to be around 1.3 million. [1] In this context, the influx of migrant workers both legal and illegal, though providing Malaysia with the work force to enhance the nation's development, it also to some extent represents itself as an ongoing threat to the Malaysian security. This essay therefore, will discuss and embellish on how migration to some extent represents a threat to Malaysian security. In doing so, this essay will be focussing on both the legal and illegal migrants/immigrants in Malaysia, whereby they represent a certain extent of immediate threat to the Malaysian security in the aspects of Social Security, Economic Security and also on the Political Security as well. The following pages will discuss the aforementioned aspects and will try to link all of them into proving the notion of this essay that migration does represent an immediate threat to Malaysian security.
Social Security
This essay believes that the inflow of migrants especially the undocumented immigrants (illegal) has been jeopardizing to some extent, the safety and well being of the Malaysian society in terms of the social security. As for this, the intended aspect of social security can be clustered into three underpinning factors, namely the significant increase of crime rates and the spreading of diseases. Before we proceed any further, it is important to note that this essay is far from being bias towards the immigrants/foreign workers whom to some extent have played their roles in helping Malaysia to move forward and to prosper in this era of globalization. To a certain degree, they are playing their role in mitigating the unevenness of the labour market, thus accommodating a reserve pool of labour that might be utilised as when needed (Kanapathy 2007). But nonetheless the arguments that shall be laid upon will be based upon facts and certain statistics to prove its worth. In discussing the issue of immigrants, the fact remains that the core of the whole issue revolves around the illegal ones. In this relation, about 70% of the irregular (illegal) migrants/workers come from Indonesia. During the early years, illegal entry was more frequent especially for the Indonesians and the Filipinos. Nevertheless, due to the strict monitoring and increased surveillance of the Malaysian borders, irregular migrants are now mainly those who enter Malaysia in accordance with the law and eventually overstay intentionally. The most relevant case in point would be Sabah, [2] in which half of the Indonesians who entered the state using tourist visa between the year 1996 and February 2003 had failed to return to their country after their visa expires (Azizah Kassim 2004). On the same note, the cases of 'overstayers', are also quite high amongst people or citizens from China and India. The reason being nonetheless lies in the similarities between them and the Chinese and Indians of Malaysia. By sharing the same cultures and languages, enables them to remain undetected and to be unnoticed by the Malaysian authorities.
The influx of foreign workers in Malaysia since the 1970's has undoubtedly bear witness to the significant increase of crime rates being committed by the foreign workers/ labours. The movement pattern is somewhat obvious where they would be most likely to find themselves jobs in the remote parts of the country. Needless to say the trend right now is gradually changing whereby they prefer to go to cities where it is easier for them to get jobs even though risking their identity to be uncovered. In this case, if we look at the illegal immigrants, for the last two decades, the numbers of crime being committed by them have risen steadily. According to the statistics produced by the Royal Malaysian Police in 2006, there was a steady increase of the number of crimes committed by immigrants in Malaysia, whereby foreign workers from Indonesia recorded the highest number of involvement, followed by the Philippines, Bangladesh, Singapore Thailand and Myanmar. In this context, the type of crimes varies from murder, armed robbery, auto theft and burglary. In this relation, it was discovered that the involvement of immigrants in the crime of murder had been increasing tremendously throughout the years in which there were 92 cases being reported in 2002, followed by 178 cases in 2003 and 320 cases in the year 2004 (Utusan Malaysia, 23 August 2006). Needless to say, this scenario is certainly a wakeup call for Malaysians and that the inflow of foreign workers infringes upon the security and the safety of the public. The readiness of the Royal Malaysian Police to acknowledge the truth and to share the actual scenario to the rest of the country is nevertheless a noble effort. But of course the repercussion that entails would definitely go beyond than just accepting the hard facts of reality. Hence, if the increase of crime rates committed by the immigrants/foreign workers continues, unquestionably the citizens would be playing around with sentiments and notions that they are not even safe in their own country and feel threatened by the presence of the ever expanding community of immigrants (both legal and illegal). This particular scenario clearly shows that the element of migration does represent a threat to Malaysian security.
Apart from the increased crime rates by the migrants, this essay is of the opinion that migrants also play a substantial role in spreading diseases in the country, thus undermines the aspect of Malaysian security. As in the case of irregular migrants, a lot of whom intentionally avoiding the compulsory health screening in Malaysia, the repercussion of it is nonetheless very severe in a sense that it would create a floodgate for infectious diseases to spread in the country. The migrants especially the irregular migrants have been acting as catalyst for highly infectious diseases such as leprosy, malaria and tuberculosis (Kanapathy 2007). According to the law, all foreign workers are compulsory to have a certificate of health fitness from recognized clinics or hospitals at their respective countries, prior to the issuance of their work permits. After that, they would be subjected to a health screening by the Foreign Workers' Medical Examination Monitoring Agency (FOMEMA). [3] According to the findings from FOMEMA, the number of cases of foreign workers infected with tuberculosis had drastically increased from 21 in 1997 to 1,278 in 2002 while cases of Hepatitis B jumped into 4,505. To accentuate on this point, again let us take at the case in point of Sabah. The presence of huge numbers of immigrants in the state of Sabah, mainly from the Philippines and Indonesia represents a ticking bomb scenario to the local citizens. In this context, the scenario is serious whereby 24.5% of total patients infected with tuberculosis and 35.4% infected with malaria accounted from the migrants. [4] What is more alarming is that the stated figures are referring to migrants whom enter Sabah legally. What about those who enter illegally? It is a very frightening situation indeed because there is no statistics on cases of infectious diseases amongst the estimated 1.3 million irregular migrants in the country. The government now has realized the chilling fact that tuberculosis, a disease being brought into the country by the migrants has now reached a staggering number of cases, together with other infectious diseases such as Hepatitis, Leprosy, Gonorrhea, HIV and AIDS.
On this matter, this essay opine to the fact that the overwhelming numbers of infected migrants with those diseases unquestionably will pose security threats to Malaysia. This is so in a sense that a majority of the migrants be it legal or illegal, work with close contacts with the masses of people, such as working in a restaurant as cooks, dish washer, waitress, just to name a few. By having close contacts with the people, the chances for them to spread and infect diseases are very high. Similar to the domino effect, this in return would create an epidemic that will give a big impact to the citizens of Malaysia. To be infected with any of the diseases, it would give huge impact to any Malaysians in particular. If this happens, the level of productivity will drop thus the process of generating output from the jobs will decrease; therefore income would be less generated. By having a society infected with diseases, it crumbles the structure of the nation, resulting in a collapse state. A well being of the state is pretty much based upon its citizen, citizen with good moral values, intelligent and healthy. How can a state prosper and develop if its citizens are too weak and crippled by health issues and above all helpless in eradicating the root of the problem itself? All these, not only affect the intended person, but it affects the whole facet of society's security, hence the security of the country.
Economic Security
This essay also believes to the opinion that migration poses an immediate threat to Malaysia in the aspect of economic security. As for this, the following details will elaborate on the aspect of threats to the economic security of which it can be categorized into outflow of Malaysian currency/remittance by foreign workers and limiting /threatening job opportunities to local Malaysians. It is a common knowledge that the majority of migrants/foreign workers in Malaysia comes from Indonesia, Nepal, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Philippines and Vietnam. From the view point of these 'contributing' countries, at least it will lessen the rate of their unemployment but the most vital aspect is that they will benefit from the currency exchange rate. For any migrants, definitely one of the attractions that lured them is nonetheless the opportunity to get higher wages compared to what they are getting in their own countries (Todaro 2000). As being prescribed by Findley:
"No matter which theory is used to explain migration, the predominance of economics motives is generally recognized…..These economics motives fall into two general classes, the search for employment and the search for higher income" (Findley 1977).
As for the case of Malaysia, being a country which offers relatively higher wages compared to most of the ASEAN state members, justifies the influx of so many migrants/foreign workers. Unfortunately, this scenario comes with a heavy price to pay. These migrants not only get higher wages, but in return, they would remit the money to their families in their origin countries. The outcome of this will surely gives impact to the economic security of Malaysia. This is because, when the origin countries of the migrants receive the moneys, they would benefit straight away from the currency exchange rate and would provide income for them. In this context, the money would be used by those countries to pay or replace the import cost for products or commodities bought from Malaysia. Every year, the amount of money being remitted by migrants working in all sectors in Malaysia is increasing in a very alarming rate. In the year 2007, approximately RM17.2 billion flowed out from Malaysia and drastically increased to RM18.1 billion in 2008 (Central Bank of Malaysia 2009). What is more worrying is the fact that those figures might be much higher because it only constitutes a fraction of the amount involving the banking service, and it does not include monies being sent away through the migrants themselves or with the help from their relatives and friends. The astonishing fact is that the outflow of the Malaysian currency into foreign countries is much higher compared to the individual tax of Malaysian collected by the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM), [5] which was reported to be RM12 billion in 2007. Apart from that, if we look at the mass influx of the migrants/foreign workers, it would gradually limit, thus threatening job opportunities to the local people. In this relation, it is a common knowledge that foreign workers, especially the illegal migrants, they do not mind to be paid with lower wages compared to the local people (though they are getting much higher wages compared to what they are getting in their own countries). This in return would create negative impacts to the local Malaysians to seek jobs, hence helping to increase the rate of unemployment in Malaysia.
Looking into the gravity of this issue, the most vital thing is the element of threat where it all boils down to the negative impact on the economic security of Malaysia. On a serious note, the outflow of Malaysian currency by the migrants in staggering amount, on a yearly basis, would resulted in a huge loss for the country economically, be it in a short or long term period. Economically speaking, the money should rather be spent in Malaysia, in which it will help the country in terms of capital rotation. Hence, the government would then be able to monitor the growth and circulation of the money within the country in order to help boost the market and economy of its own citizen. In other words, the outflow of currency would none other create instability and losses to the government of Malaysia. As stated earlier, the remittance of money by the migrants to some extent resulted to profit making by their own countries. Therefore, letting other parties gaining profit to the expense of one's own country and people, it is definitely a breach of security, and also a breach of trust and responsibility of the state. The same goes to the job opportunities of the local people which are being threatened, in which it would create uproar amongst Malaysians who might feel betrayed by their own government. If this matter is not being taken seriously, gradually negative sentiments would spread, tensions would then be culminated into series of protests and the confidence of the people would decrease, and that would be a costly thing to happen for a developing country such as Malaysia. In a nutshell, losses to the government in terms of economy, also means jeopardizing the economic security, hence the security of the nation as a whole.
Political Security
Last but not least, this essay also opines to the notion that migration poses an immediate threat to Malaysia in the aspect of political security. As for this, this essay shall deliberate on false/fake documentation committed by certain quarters of migrants especially the irregular/illegal Immigrants, with regards of owning fake Malaysian IC. [6] Throughout the years, due to stringent laws and procedures, has resulted in the rise of cost of recruiting foreign labours into Malaysia. Though it meant well, but to a certain extent it also resulted into the activity of falsifying documents by the migrants. Furthermore, the illegal immigrants have realized the perks and importance of becoming a 'citizen' of Malaysia. Therefore, the easiest way to become one is by having false/fake IC. Indeed this kind of scenario has become an imminent threat to the security of the nation. By having a fake IC or fake documents of citizenship, the illegal immigrants can virtually become a part of the electoral process in Malaysia, in which they would be able to cast vote to choose leaders in the country; a privilege given only to 'authentic' Malaysians. With regards of possessing fake ICs, the illegal immigrants can virtually be given equal access to political rights in Malaysia and being able to decide the leadership in public offices, thus being involved in the process of forming national policies. This would jeopardize beyond doubt the sovereignty of the state, through which the forming of a national agenda, such as the electoral process, is being undermined by foreign people. In this relation, the scenario of both the Malaysian citizens and illegal immigrants to have equal rights and privileges is nonetheless a mockery to the idea of a successful and sovereign state. Therefore the notion whether migration represents a threat to Malaysian security via political security has certainly been proven.
Conclusion
It is a well known fact that the securitization of migrants and the issue of migration is nothing new, but nonetheless it does bear importance due to its dynamic nature. But one thing for sure, the perception of migration as a threat to national security of a state has undoubtedly reached to a new level. The notion of national security itself will always be a prevailing term and will continue to evolve according to the scenario of world politics. The question remains; does migration really represent a threat to the state? The answer is yes, it does represent, to some extent, a threat to any receiving countries, though the level and seriousness of the intended threat might differ from one country to the other.
For the case of Malaysia, this essay believes that migration does represent a threat to Malaysian security. To a certain extent, Malaysian security is facing imminent threat by the influx of immigrants, especially the irregular/illegal immigrants. All of the aforementioned threats, namely in the aspects of Social Security, Economic Security and also Political Security propagate real threats that may lead to the instability of the nation. From the view point of social security, the staggering and significant increase of crime rates and the overwhelming statistics of migrants being infected with horrific would definitely struck fear and uneasiness amongst the citizen. The same goes to the economic security where job opportunities of the local people are being threatened and the loss of money by way of huge remittance by the immigrants, all of which acts as a catalyst in creating uproar amongst Malaysians who feel betrayed and treated unjustly by their own government. Last but not least the political security of the state would also be undermined if the issue of falsifying documents by the immigrants is not being tackled firmly.
Indeed we cannot deny the fact that the element of migration has been providing Malaysia with sustenance of labours and skilled workers to foster Malaysia's development. But we have to bear in mind that development does not come free; sometimes it involves jeopardizing the structure and fundamental of the state, which is the nation's security…
