“Therefore, I’ve decided to leave this country for good and I’m selling all my properties now as a preparation.” NotProud

Dear NotProud,

Please keep us updated on your progress in your new home. You may feel like burning the Malaysian flag and throw away your Malaysian passport but I suggest you don’t. I still have mine and I still proudly show my nation’s flag even on Veterans’ Day and on every other occassion I so choose to do. Even my car plate has the name of the state I come from.

Never forget your roots.

What do you want done with all the illegal aliens in the country? Put them on buses and in sampans and send them across the border which may be just a jungle path without a fence? They will be back the next day selling counterfeit DVDs and smuggled kereteks in pasar malams.

Furthermore, you’re talking of some two million or more in West and East Malaysia.

Migration both legal and illegal, is a fact of life. History is about waves of migration of people across borders which are man-made.

We have NotProudToBeMalaysian now migrating to China. He is just one of some one million or more Malaysians migrating on a tourist visa and overstaying in their adopted countries. In Sabah they just walked across. I don’t think the government knows how many walked across the jungle paths and across streams over the years – not that anyone is taking count.

Today’s illegals are tomorrow’s citizens.

“I agree with you that this illegal immigrants problem is a tough issue to handle.”

Migration (both legal and illegal) is affecting the EU countries, influencing public policies in ways not thought of in recent times, forever changing its political and cultural landscape. It is public knowledge that this last wave of migration is different from past years since most of them come from Muslim countries. With these recent waves of migration come serious socio-economic problems and the issues of integration – or assimilation depending on one’s perspective.

In the U.S. there are some 20 plus million illegal aliens mostly from South America and Mexico (nobody really knows the exact number but judging from the DV Lottery runs by the government, every year some 11 million applications are received from residents and non-residents, and from other countries wanting to become permanent residents of the U.S. out of which only 50,000 applications are approved).

The issue of porous borders to the south with Mexico and to the north with Canada takes on new significance in the light of 9/11. Otherwise it is an issue which is raised during Presidential elections, in an attempt to legalize some of these illegal aliens so they could then vote for the Party that seeks to push the much needed legislation.

The fact remains that in the U.S. illegal immigration has been feeding industries here with the much needed cheap labor – just like in the case of Malaysia. If not for the cheap labor from South American countries and Mexico, many factories would have closed down. Indeed factories are closing down as we speak as outsourcing continues. I remember the first time I visited the U.S. in the early 80s I was shocked to find there’s hardly anything made in the USA. Just to name a few, clothing and footwear are made under license from Indonesia, Philippines and Hong Kong, Taiwan – and computer and computer disk drives from Malaysia.

In today’s Presidential elections, the issue of illegal immigration is one issue both Democrats and Republicans would like to avoid if they could because they know it is a sensitive issue with ordinary working class Americans whose wages are being depressed by the influx of cheap labor. But otherwise both know that cheap labor is needed by corporate America if the country is to remain competitive with the rest of the world. There is a lot of hypocrisy there.

In Malaysia, I think the Malaysian government just doesn’t know what to do. No comprehensive studies and no comprehensive plans – orrect me if I am wrong. In the U.S. it is looked upon as “broken borders” but in Malaysia it is more like there is no border!

“The migrants were always there but this shift got me thinking if there is a slow but significant shift in demographics and social status of the Latinos ?” killer

You’re right on the shift but not on the timing. This shift in demographics is not a recent phenomenon. Bear in mind that most of south west United States not too long ago belonged to Mexico. Some say with illegal immigration, the Mexicans are trying to re-claim what was once theirs! In fact Hispanic talk show hosts over the radio often refer to it as such – mostly in a lighter vein, of course. I don’t know if you have heard of ‘anchor babies’ a term used within the context of the discussion on illegal immigration. You have say a pregnant Mexican woman walking across the southern border and later giving birth to a son. That son is a U.S. citizen – following the principle of jus soli. And so the process continues. Coupled with the fact that the birth rate among Hispanics and Latinos is higher than that among non-Hispanic whites, in the year 2050, non-White Hispanic population of the United States will exceed that of the non-Hispanic White population. Some refer to this as the “browning of America”!

President Sukarno of Indonesia during the Malaysia-Indonesian conflict in the early 60s accused Malaysia of being a neo-colonialist plot – and claimed Sarawak and Sabah as part of Indonesian territories, a claim not too dissimilar to the ‘claim’ by Mexicans say to California today (minus the ‘neo-colonialist plot’ slant of course). There are elements of truth to that claim. Wouldn’t you say?

The Chinese in Sabah are relatively recent migrants to this part of the Indonesian Archipelago. Indonesian Chinese in neighboring Sulawesi are part of that same wave of migration.. The intermarrying between the Chinese and the natives in Southern Sulawesi has given rise to a new ‘race’ the Bugis who are seafarers or pirates who came to settle in Pahang and Johor.

Today what we are seeing are waves of economic migrants – from Indonesian Kalimantan, encouraged by the Malay leadership in Kuala Lumpur as an hoc solution to its political problem and in an attempt to break the political impasse if you will – coming across to Sabah, much like what we are seeing in the south west of United States except that in the case of the United States, this is being resisted by its government.

Today’s solution will be tomorrow’s problem.