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³ See, for example, Janina Wiktoria Dacyl, Between Compassion and Realpolitik: In Search of a General Model of the Responses of Recipient Countries to Large-Scale Refugee Flows with Reference to the South-East Asian Refugee Crisis, Stockholm, University of Stockholm Studies in Politics, 1992, chs 5 and 9. While the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) in 1989 recognized the refugee criterion of the 1951 Refugee Convention and related instruments, it did not signal recognition of the Convention or the totality of rights therein. See Vitit Muntarbhorn, The Status of Refugees in Asia, Oxford, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1992, p. 132.Google Scholar

⁴ See especially Hazel Lang, Fear and Sanctuary: Burmese Refugees in Thailand, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2002. Under the 1979 Immigration Act (Article 17), the admission and regulation of (some) ‘displaced persons fleeing fighting’ into camps (officially designated as ‘temporary shelters’) allow for limited circumventions of the broader prohibitions against entry and stay of ‘irregular migrants’ in the Royal Kingdom. There is no counterpart to this regime in Malaysia.Google Scholar

⁵ See, for example, Jennifer Hyndman, Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism, Minnesota, Minnesota University Press, 2000.Google Scholar

⁶ Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 1st edn, London, Verso, 1983, p. 145.Google Scholar

⁷ For a contrast with more elaborate recent mechanisms of interdiction and neo refoulement, see especially Kernerman, and Hyndman and Mountz, in this volume.Google Scholar

⁸ W. Courtland Robinson, Terms of Refuge: The Indochinese Exodus and the International Response, London: Zed Books, 1998, p. 42. Out of 61,729 boat refugees encamped in South-East and East Asian countries at the time, 46,286 were in Malaysia, according to figures cited in Robinson, Terms of Refuge, p. 32. Before the end of the exodus, an estimated 255,000 Vietnamese boat refugees reached a camp (there were eight) in Malaysia. Before the last camp in Malaysia closed in 2001, 248,410 Vietnamese were resettled in the USA or a Cold War allied country outside Asia, except for the 9,000 people who returned to Vietnam. See, for example, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, press release, ‘UNHCR and Malaysia Close Camp for Vietnamese Boat-People’, 25 June 2001.Google Scholar

⁹ Robinson, Terms of Refuge, p. 42.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Robinson, W. Courtland, ‘Refugee Warriors at the Thai-Cambodian Border’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 19: 1 (2000), p. 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Robinson, Terms of Refuge, pp. 45–50.

¹¹ While the official category has remained ‘illegal undocumented migrant’ under Malaysia's Immigration Act, ‘illegal immigrants’ (pendatang haram) has circulated in public discourse since the early 1980s, followed by ‘illegals’ in the mid-1980s and, a decade later, ‘aliens’. Diana Wong, ‘Irregular Migration in Malaysia: Review of Literature and Policies’, unpublished paper, n.d. In the case of Thailand, the 1979 Immigration Act (amended in 1992) refers to ‘irregular migrants’. For the purpose of this article, the term ‘illegal migrant’ is used interchangeably with the official categories, unless otherwise indicated.Google Scholar

¹² Azizah Kassim, ‘Economic Slowdown and its Impact on Cross-National Migration and Policy on Alien Employment in Malaysia’, in OECD (ed.), Migration and the Labour Market in Asia: Recent Trends and Policies, Paris, OECD, 2002, p. 330.Google Scholar

¹³ Sidney Jones, Making Money off Migrants: The Indonesian Exodus to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Asia 2000 Ltd, 2000, p. 89.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Kassim, ‘Economic Slowdown’, p. 330.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Figures cited in Samuel Cheung, ‘Penalization of Refugees in Malaysia and Thailand: Regional Conceptualisations of Persons in Need’, unpublished paper presented at the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, Cairo, January 2008, p. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See, for example, Alice M. Nah, ‘Struggling with (Il)legality: The Indeterminate Functioning of Malaysia's Borders for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Stateless Persons’, in Prem Kumar and Carl Grundy-War (eds), Borderscapes, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.Google Scholar

¹⁷ ‘UNHCR Staff Celebrates Release of Babies from Detention in Malaysia’, UNHCR News Stories, 23 March 2007.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Cited in Yongyuth Chalamwong, ‘Economic Stagnation, the Labour Market and International Migration in Thailand’, in OECD, Migration and the Labour Market in Asia, p. 381.Google Scholar

¹⁹ ‘Myanmar to Accept Return of Illegal Workers, Thailand Says’, Agence France, 8 February 2002.Google Scholar

²⁰ Human Rights Watch, Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Thai Policy Toward Burmese Refugees, New York, Human Rights Watch, 16: 2(C) (February 2004), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

²¹ For an overview of the media coverage of refugees in Malaysia, see Kiranjit Kaur, Media Reporting on Refugees in Malaysia, UNE Asia Centre Paper 13, Armidale, University of New England Asia Centre, May 2007.Google Scholar

²² A recent study by researcher Kulachada Chaipipat has focused on media coverage of migrants in Thailand. See, for example, ‘Foreign Workers Needed but Alienated’, The Nation, 26 November 2007.Google Scholar

²³ See, for example, Panitan Wattanayagorn, ‘Thailand: The Elite's Shifting Conceptions of Security’, in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 417–44.Google Scholar

²⁴ Lang, Fear and Sanctuary, p. 97.Google Scholar

²⁵ On the role of the Thai military, see Lang, Fear and Sanctuary, pp. 95–7. On deportations directly into the SPCD holding centre in Myawaddy, see also Human Rights Watch, Out of Sight, pp. 13–15.Google Scholar

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²⁷ See, for example, Jones, Making Money off Migrants, and Spaan, Ernst J. A. M., ‘Taikongs and Calos: The Role of Middlemen and Brokers in Javanese International Migration’, International Migration Review, 28: 1 (1994), pp. 93–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

²⁸ See, for example, Human Rights Watch, ‘Mass Expulsion Puts Migrants at Risk’, Human Rights News, 19 November 2004.Google Scholar

²⁹ See, for example, John Tribett, ‘Acehnese Refugees in Malaysia: A Current Overview’, paper presented to the Fourth International Malaysian Studies Conference, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 3–5 August 2004.Google Scholar

³⁰ Author interviews, Penang, March 2005, Kuala Lumpur, January 2006.Google Scholar

³¹ Tenaganita, ‘Memorandum on Abuse, Torture and Dehumanized Treatment of Migrant Workers at Detention Camps’, unpublished document, Kuala Lumpur, Tenaganita, 1995. This report, which was picked up by national and international human rights groups, prompted the threat of detention under the National Security Act of Tenaganita's founder/director of Tenaganita, Dr Irene Fernandez. At the time, there were 11 detention camps, a figure that has subsequently quadrupled, including 28 prisons.Google Scholar

³² After 1995, the government transferred immigration and labour recruitment from the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Workers to the Ministry of Home Affairs, thus paving the way for wider (ab)uses of the Immigration Act against migrant workers, and other migrants. After 2005, camp management was transferred from Immigration to Prisons.Google Scholar

³³ For one account of the role of concerned NGOs, see Gurowitz, Amy, ‘Migrant Rights and Activism in Malaysia: Opportunities and Constraints’, Journal of Asian Studies, 59: 4 (November 2000), pp. 863–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ In a related argument, Amarjit Kaur draws attention to how changing state practices of migration control have also seen a shift away from a conventional view of the border as a territorial dividing line. See Amarjit Kaur, ‘Order and (Dis)Order at the Border: Mobility, International Labour Migration and Border Controls in Southeast Asia’, in Amarjit Kaur and Ian Metcalfe (eds), Mobility, Labour Migration and Border Controls in Asia, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2006, pp. 23–51.Google Scholar

³⁵ Human Rights Watch, ‘Malaysia: Disband Abusive Volunteer Corps’, press release, 9 May 2007.Google Scholar

³⁶ ‘Dozens of Illegal Immigrants Detained in Raids’, New Straits Times, 16 January 2001. The photograph accompanying this story shows arresting officers and Rela members guarding the back of a small lorry with perhaps as many as a dozen ‘illegal immigrants’ ‘bound for the police station’.Google Scholar

³⁷ ‘Cops Raid Indon Hideout’, Star, 2 February 2001. The photograph that accompanies this story shows one uniformed Rela officer in charge of the physical apprehension of a young man, with the assistance of three other men wearing informal jackets marked ‘RELA’. No police officer can be seen in this photo.Google Scholar

³⁸ ‘Three Callgirl Suspects Among 21 Illegals Caught’, Star, 29 August 2000. The convenient representation of the Religious Department at this raid was presumably because of the added moral depravity of a situation allegedly involving prostitutes (although prostitution as such is not a crime in Malaysia, merely solicitation). In the accompanying photo, the strangely implausible ‘action shot’ shows a police officer putting an authoritative hand on the shoulder of a malang-clad Indonesian (Achenese) man climbing out of a closet full of clothes, thus further adding insult to injury.Google Scholar

³⁹ ‘Malaysia's Mystery Migrant Deaths’, BBC News 24 World Asia-Pacific, 16 February 2006. This article also makes reference to the death of two migrant workers in the same area the previous year – after being struck down by a Rela truck – which had passed without further official investigation or media scrutiny.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ ‘Rela and Malaysia's Invisible War’, Aliran Monthly, 27: 9 (2006).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Suaram, ‘Refugees Increasingly at Risk of Arrest by Immigration Department Despite being Recognized by UNHCR’, 2 March 2007.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid.Google Scholar

⁴³ Human Rights Watch, ‘Malaysia: Disband Abusive Volunteer Corps’.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The 2006 estimate is cited in Aliran Monthly, 27: 9 (2006), and the 2007 figure in New Straits Times, 22 April 2007.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Bernama, 21 March 2007. According to Tan, the majority of the ‘detainees’ in 2006 were Indonesian (17,038), Burma (2,988) and India (1,206).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ There is a brief mention of this incident in Human Rights Watch, ‘Malaysia: Disband Abusive Volunteer Corps’.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ New Straits Times, 22 April, 2007. This article reports on the arrest of ‘10 Rela members on suspicion of robbing 20 Indonesians during a raid on a kongsi in Kampung Rapat I Ipoh’. See Suaram and Human Rights Watch alerts for summary of Rela abuses.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ ‘Malaysia Volunteer Force Accused of Rights Abuses’, Reuters, 10 May 2007.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cited in ibid.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Cited in New Straits Times, 22 April 2007.Google Scholar

⁵² See, for example, Arthur Brenner and Bruce Campbell (eds), Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability, New York, St Martin's Press, 2000.Google Scholar

⁵³ Issues that have received prominent attention include the regulation of pre-marital relations among Muslim men and women, halal food certification and even public displays of affection (see further below).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ GoM, 1964 Emergency (Essential Powers) Act.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ GoM, 2005 Essential Regulations: Rela Amendment, which entered into effect on 1 February 2005.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ ‘Lawyers Unanimous in Call for the Demise of RELA and the Usage of Only Professional Law Enforcement Personnel in Malaysia’, Migrant Forum in Asia (March 2007).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ ‘Rela and Malaysia's Invisible War,’ Aliran Monthly, 27: 9 (2006).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ ‘Rela Pushing for Separate Law’, New Straits Times, 26 January 2007.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ ‘Rela to Takeover Job of Guarding Detention Depots’, Bernama, 22 November 2007.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid. I am grateful to Samuel Cheung for drawing my attention to this recent development.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See, for example, Harold Crouch, Government and Society in Malaysia, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1996.Google Scholar

⁶² As noted by Charles Hirschman, the use of ‘Malay’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’ as ‘the major organizing principle’ first appeared in the 1891 Straits Settlements Census. Hirschman, Charles, ‘The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia: An Analysis of Census Classification’, Journal of Asian Studies, 46: 3 (August 1987), p. 567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶³ See, for example, the essays in Timothy P. Barnard (ed.), Contesting Malayness: Malay Identity Across Boundaries, Singapore, Singapore University Press, 2004.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Joel S. Khan, Other Malays: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Malay World, Singapore, Singapore University Press, 2006, p. 152.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ For an illuminating account of one such migrant community, see Sekimoto, Teruo, ‘Pioneer Settlers and State Control: A Javanese Migrant Community in Selangor, Malaysia’, Southeast Asian Studies, 32: 2 (September 1994), pp. 173–96.Google Scholar In examining this migrant community of Javanese, Sekimoto notes that ‘they could become Malaysian only by becoming Malay’, ibid., p. 174.

⁶⁶ For a comparative historical perspective on organized religion and the state in Indonesia and Malaysia, see Hedman, Eva-Lotta E., ‘Contesting State and Civil Society: Southeast Asian Trajectories’, Modern Asian Studies, 35: 4 (2001), pp. 921–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁷ See Peletz, Michael G., ‘Sacred Texts and Dangerous Worlds: The Politics of Law and Cultural Rationalization in Malaysia’, Comparative Study of Society and History, 35 (1993), pp. 66–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ Kahn, Other Malays, p. 170.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ On Indonesian language formation, see Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., ‘The Languages of Indonesian Politics’, Indonesia, 1 (April 1966), pp. 89–116,CrossRefGoogle Scholar reprinted in his Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 123–51.

⁷⁰ Kassim, Azizah, ‘The Unwelcome Guests: Indonesian Immigrants and Malaysian Public Responses’, Southeast Asian Studies, 25: 2 (September 1987), p. 276.Google Scholar For a brief related discussion about the concerns over marriages of migrant men to local women, see Lucy Healey, ‘Gender, “Aliens,” and the National Imaginary in Contemporary Malaysia’, Sojourn, 15: 2 (2000), pp. 234–6.

⁷¹ For a related analysis focused on internal migration, see Thompson, Eric C., ‘Malay Male Migrants: Negotiating Contested Identities in Malaysia’, American Ethnologist, 30: 3 (August 2003), pp. 418–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷² As examined elsewhere, the government used to regulate the employment of foreign domestic workers according to social, religious and cultural affinity between employer and employee. See Christine B. N. Chin, In Service and Servitude, Foreign Female Domes ‘Modernity’ Project, New York, Columbia University Project, 1998. While this regulation was abandoned, the employment of domestic workers in Malaysia continues to reflect a distinct pattern, with Malays employing Indonesians and non-Malays employing Filipinas. On domestic workers from the Philippines, see, for example, Guy, Michelle Lee, ‘Gossiping Endurance: Discipline and Social Control of Filipina Helpers in Malaysia’, Asian Journal of Social Science, 32: 3 (September 2004), pp. 501–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷³ See, for example, Kahn, Other Malays.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ See, for example, ‘Campaign Against Morality Policing’, Sun, 23 March 2005; ‘State Morality Squad Disbanded’, New Straits Times, 26 March 2005; and ‘Halal Issue “Can Hurt Nation” ’, Star, 20 March 2005.Google Scholar

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