Back for good. Reforms in legalization and amnesty programmes in Malaysia

Abstract

This article suggests that legalization and amnesty programmes have not been able to reduce undocumented migration in Malaysia for two reasons. First, the programmes merely serve as a registration tool that provides foreign workers with short-term work permits and as a surveillance tool to keep track of foreign workers. Second, the temporary work permits granted are no substitute for a migrant-labour management policy in addressing the acute shortage of low-skilled workers. Despite the introduction of these programmes, undocumented migrants have continued to exist because employers prefer to hire undocumented workers in their ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of costs, and the workers are dependent on their employers and agents as the gatekeepers of their legal immigration status. In 2016 and 2019, the Malaysian government introduced two reforms to its legalization and amnesty programmes: it eliminated outsourcing of the process in the Rehiring Programme (2016) and barred repatriated migrants from re-entering the country under the Back for Good amnesty programme (2019). Though these reforms have partially addressed the limitations of the previous programmes, they have not addressed the root cause of migrant labourers working without proper documentation.