KUALA LUMPUR: The new amnesty programme “Back for Good” (B4G) that is aimed at reducing the number of illegal immigrants in the country kicked off smoothly here today.
Illegal immigrants from various countries were seen queuing patiently with their documents at the Immigration Department here this morning.
Some were asked to leave because their documents were incomplete.
Kuala Lumpur Immigration Department director Hamidi Adam said 290 foreigners had registered for the B4G programme today.
“The response has been positive. We registered 290 foreigners today — mostly Indonesians, followed by Bangladeshi and Myanmar nationals.
“They are those who had overstayed or did not posses a valid document.” Hamidi advised the applicants to get tickets from licensed travel agents and not be deceived by those offering unusually low prices.
“Make sure everything is in order — ticket, travel document and RM700 cash (to sign up for the programme),” he added.
On July 18, Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had announced the implementation of the B4G programme from Aug 1 to Dec 31 to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the country.
Apart from reducing the influx of illegal immigrants, B4G programme also aims to save the cost of depot management as well as curb social problems, crime activities and infection risks.
The B4G programme only involves illegal immigrants in the peninsula.
Those who are currently detained at the depots are not allowed to participate in this initiative.
The illegal immigrants only need to obtain complete identification documents from their respective embassy or high commissions before handing them over to the Immigration Office for processing.
Also, they need to pay a compound fine of RM700 and show the flight tickets for them to return to their countries of origin.
The last amnesty programme, called the 3+1 amnesty programme ran from 2014 to August last year with 840,000 illegal immigrants repatriated and RM400 million in compounds collected.