Managing labour migration in Malaysia: foreign workers and the challenges of ‘control’ beyond liberal democracies

Abstract

This paper examines the issue of migration control in Malaysia. Despite the fact that the majority of the world's migratory movements are between countries in the Global South, the dominant focus of research on migration control has tended to be liberal democracies of the Global North. Here, focussing on a country which is a major destination for migrants in Southeast Asia, this paper examines the varied policies enacted by the Malaysian government in an effort to decrease the number of undocumented foreign workers. As Malaysia is known for its frequent migration policy shifts, this paper traces the many twists and turns in Malaysian policy in the period from 2011 to 2019. In doing so, the paper seeks to help build a better understanding of the complex and sometimes contradictory tools states use in attempting to manage migration. Here I find that some patterns emerge from Malaysia's use of a wide variety of policy instruments to reduce its population of undocumented foreign workers, but that ultimately these must be placed in the context of the overall economic reliance of Malaysia on foreign labour and its turbulent policies.

Criminality, chaos and corruption: Analyzing the narratives of labor migration dynamics in Malaysia

“…A range of scholars have shed light on the evolution of Malaysia's migration policies (see e.g., Nesadurai, 2013;Garcés-Mascare ňas, 2015;Kaur, 2018;Elias, 2018;Anderson, 2020), but we lack insight into how the actors that make, or seek to shape, migration and employment policies conceptualize 3 Ethnic Malays have always been politically dominant and are granted a "special position" in the constitution (Haque, 2003). 4 While categorized as "temporary," many of the foreign workers who come to Malaysia experience lasting temporariness and many do end up staying for many years, even decades (Rother and Piper, 2015).…”

“…A range of scholars have shed light on the evolution of Malaysia’s migration policies (see e.g., Nesadurai, 2013 ; Garcés-Mascareňas, 2015 ; Kaur, 2018 ; Elias, 2018 ; Anderson, 2020 ), but we lack insight into how the actors that make, or seek to shape, migration and employment policies conceptualize migration-related issues and migration-related policies in Malaysia. This paper addresses this gap in the literature.…”

“…While migrant workers are integral to Malaysia’s economic development, the country has struggled to implement coherent policies to manage labor migration due to the competing pressure between businesses’ desire for “cheap” foreign labor and the political demands to curb immigration ( ILO, 2016 ). These competing factors have driven a number of policy reversals since the 1990s which have seen the government oscillate between implementing migration bans, large-scale deportations (which capitalize on the discourse of migrants being a “threat”), legalization programs and return migration schemes (see also, Chin, 2017 ; Anderson, 2020 ). When the Malaysian government has cracked down on undocumented migrants this has caused stark labor shortages, which has often resulted in policy U-turns that, in some cases, even involved inviting back deported workers, and some employers were reportedly permitted to hire migrants straight from the immigration detention centers ( Nesadurai, 2013 ; Garcés-Mascareňas, 2015 ).…”

Implikasi Dasar Pengurusan Warga Asing Di Malaysia

“…Kajian dan pengumpulan data serta maklumat juga dijalankan melalui pembacaan artikel yang diterbitkan di akhbar atau agensi Kerajaan secara dalam talian. Menurut Anderson (2020), pengumpulan maklumat dan data melalui pembacaan artikel di dalam akhbar dijalankan kerana terdapat dokumen, wawancara, kenyataan media dan statistik yang diperoleh daripada Kerajaan Malaysia disiarkan dalam akhbar untuk pemakluman orang awam. Namun begitu, maklumat statistik berkenaan warga asing di Malaysia didapati sukar diperolehi melalui carian dalam talian.…”

Securing Malaysia’s Borders from Covid-19: Legal Considerations to the Influx of Rohingya Migrants

“…50 The cross-border movement of workers has become well established in South-East Asia, where Malaysia is a major labour-receiving country and Indonesia and the Philippines are the region's main labour-sending states. 51 As mentioned above, Rohingya migrants have fled their hostile home country of Myanmar and overcrowded camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazaar; they have been illegally trafficked into Malaysia, which is regarded as their "land of dreams" by most Rohingyas. 52 Therefore, managing cross-border migration (labour, refugee and human trafficking) has become an issue of increasing concern in Malaysia and its international contemporaries.…”