KUALA LUMPUR: Singer Azura Aziz, 51, and her husband Cheb Ali Masrawi, 51, expressed their gratitude to the government for granting Malaysian citizenship to their three children on Jan 22.
Azura said the occasion was made more memorable as they received the news on her birthday on Feb 10.
"We received the letter on Feb 18. It is the biggest gift on my birthday this year and a decision from the government that we all truly appreciate.
"Now, our children can reside in Malaysia without any disturbance or discrimination, continue their education, and enjoy full benefits as Malaysian citizens.
"We can also live in Malaysia as a united family forever," she said.
Earlier, on April 5 last year, Harian Metro reported that the couple faced challenges when their eldest son, Seifulislam Ali, 20, failed to pursue higher education at a public university due to visa issues.
Their other two children are Safiyurrahman Ali, 19, and Nusratuddin Ali, 9.
The couple got married in Malaysia on March 17, 2003, and Azura later moved to Egypt to be with her husband, who is from Cairo.
"After marriage, we shuttled between Malaysia and Egypt. However, when it was time for me to give birth in Malaysia, I couldn't do so because of Cheb's commitment to his work in Egypt.
"He managed Unesco projects, documenting the history of Egypt under the Egyptian government.
"This situation made it challenging for him to take long leaves to return to Malaysia.
"My first child (Bubu) was born on Dec 16, 2003, the second (Totti) on Dec 2, 2005, and the third (Mimo) on Oct 31, 2014," she said.
The couple decided to return and settle in Malaysia in 2017 with their three non-citizen children.
"From then on, we had to obtain student passes for each child to allow them to stay with us as a family.
"We went through a very difficult process every year to renew their visas with considerable effort and cost.
"At the same time, we always checked the citizenship application status for our children that we applied for in 2018 and were informed it was still in process at the Home Ministry," she said.
After Seifulislam Ali completed the Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM) in 2020, they applied for a Resident Pass but received a disappointing response.
"After an eight-month process, this application was not approved without reason, causing our child to lose the opportunity to continue education at higher education institutions until now.
"It was even more perplexing when we learned that by the end of this year if he does not obtain Malaysian citizenship, there will be no chance for him afterwards because he will be over 21 years old.
"So, we tried and hoped that the process for our children's citizenship application could be expedited, considering it would solve all the problems," she said.
The couple breathed a sigh of relief when they received a call from the ministry asking them to submit additional documents to complete their children's files.
"Since then, we have been checking the mailbox every day for the past three months until they received all three letters from KDN.
In February last year, the government agreed to grant automatic citizenship through legal authority to children born outside the country to a Malaysian mother married to a non-citizen spouse.