The government has come under more fire for its handling of Covid-19 among undocumented migrants, especially following two days of triple-digit increases in infections, mostly among foreigners in detention for various immigration offences.
 
Human rights watchdog Lawyers for Liberty came out with a statement, saying undocumented workers are not acceptable casualties and, basically, that it’s absolute rubbish that the mass arrests of foreigners would protect Malaysians from the pandemic. It said any spread of the virus among detainees would be a burden to the healthcare system, and is a risk to Immigration Department officers, staff and frontliners who will have to deal with the infected. 
 
Another human rights organisation, the North-South Initiative, says raids conducted on undocumented foreigners also failed to nab the real culprits – the labour agents and employers. Some migrant workers, they say, become undocumented as they are abused and have nowhere to turn, and so run away from their employers to seek work elsewhere, thus becoming undocumented. 
 
Senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, however, has hit back at NGOs and other bodies critical of Malaysia’s handling of Covid-19 cases amongst foreigners. He says Malaysia treats its undocumented workers more humanely than many other countries and those who tested positive for the virus are sent to a “beautiful place” to be treated. 
 
Let’s put aside the debate about whether undocumented workers are treated fairly or humanely for a bit. Let’s also shelve the argument about whether the new temporary hospital at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang is “a beautiful place” or not.
 
Instead let’s take a look at a point our beloved minister seems to be missing, one which NGOs and bodies like the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) have pointed out: Immigration raids for undocumented workers should be suspended for the time being.
 
Earlier this month, Suhakam and other NGOs had pointed out that such raids during the Covid-19 crisis would prove counter-productive as it wouldn’t encourage undocumented foreigners to come forward to be tested for the virus, even if they knew they were at high risk of being infected. They also pointed out these raids would add to already crowded conditions of detention centres, increasing the risks of any coronavirus infection spreading like wildfire. And all despite the Immigration Department saying last month it would suspend raids. 
 
Fast forward to last week, and we now find foreign detainees at the Bukit Jalil Immigration depot were testing positive for Covid-19, despite the fact these people were there from before the pandemic started. These people were kept isolated from those arrested after the MCO was put in place. So how did they get infected? 
 
Well, the cause of the infections is still being investigated but Health DG Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said two days ago there was a possibility there could have been a case of those picked up from EMCO areas somehow managing to make their way to interact with those kept in Block A (where the pre-MCO detainees are housed), or that the detention centre staff somehow brought the infection from one block to another. 
 
But it’s not just undocumented migrants that are at high risk. Documented workers are too, simply because of the deplorable living conditions they have to endure. It isn’t uncommon to see 20 or even more migrant workers crammed into a small flat unit. And mind you, we have some 2.2 million documented migrant workers here – or at least that was the count in 2017. How many illegals? Some say there are as many as 4 million (Side note: this piece articulates a lot of the issues around the quandry we now find ourselves in. Worth a read).
 
Such cramped living conditions alone, to say nothing about the hygiene levels, can cause Covid-19 (or any damned disease for that matter) to spread. And Noor Hisham is acutely aware of this. He wants such conditions to change to prevent the future spread of any virus.

The only problem is that the government doesn’t seem to be on the same page as Noor Hisham.

Amendments to the Workers’ Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990, which was supposed to have come into force from June 1, will now not be enforced until Aug 31. These amendments amendments cover better accommodation for foreign workers, but according to the Human Resource Ministry, the postponement is to give employers “the space to make the necessary arrangements”.

We’re not sure what kind of bullshit the ministry is trying to throw at us here. This law was amended last July and gazetted by September. And employers only now, less than a week before it comes into force, realise they’re not ready? 

And while our government and employers continue their wheeling and dealing, the ones that are running out of space and time are the migrants exposed to Covid-19.