Malaysia Halts UNHCR Refugee Registration, Moves to National System

Read The Diplomat, Know The Asia-Pacific With the creation of a new refugee agency in January, the country has asserted its control over the processing of asylum-seekers. Malaysia has asked the United Nations refugee ‌agency to temporarily stop registering new refugees in the country, as it begins running its own system for managing asylum-seekers, an official from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Deputy Foreign Minister Lukanisman Awang Sauni told parliament that the decision was made by the Cabinet so that the government could begin implementing ​its own refugee registration program. Known as Dokumen Pendaftaran Pelarian (DPP), the program came into force in January, and is intended to replace the current registration system managed by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “We have gone through the Cabinet’s decision and instructed the UNHCR to stop any refugee registrations for the time being because we are reorganizing the implementation of the DPP program,” Lukanisman said, the Malaysian state news agency Bernama reported. “Through the DPP, the government can manage data in a more organized manner, including the purposes of data coordination, identity verification, monitoring, and regulation without relying on the records of any foreign entities,” he added. The UNHCR says that there were around 215,600 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the agency in Malaysia, as of the end of February. The majority of these – some 193,824 – were from Myanmar, including 126,144 Rohingyas, 15,774 Chins, and 33,002 members of other ethnic groups who have fled persecution and conflict. The introduction of the DPP follows several years in which Malaysia has significantly tightened the enforcement of its immigration laws, ramping up raids and arrests of those it deems to have entered the country illegally. This campaign peaked last year, when Malaysian authorities arrested about 92,000 undocumented migrants, compared with 12,000 in 2021. Around 21,000 people are currently being held in immigration detention centers, with no legal limit on the length of their detention. The government has denied UNHCR access to these centers since 2019. This has been paralleled in recent months by a growing public hostility toward Rohingya refugees in particular. As Alex Howlett reported for The Diplomat last week, last month more than half a million people signed a petition on Change.org calling for the removal of Rohingya refugees from Malaysia, while prominent public figures have recently described the Rohingya as “criminals” and “intruders” and likened them to a “cancer” on the country. Lukanisman told parliament that the purpose of DPP was to reduce the burden on Malaysia of managing such a large number of asylum-seekers, and to exercise much tighter control over those who are admitted. Refugee registrations under the DPP “will be carried out through a strict process in collaboration with various enforcement agencies to ensure that only eligible individuals are registered and to prevent the entry of illegal immigrants in the future,” Bernama paraphrased him as saying. Lukanisman said that the temporary halt to registrations would allow the UNHCR to focus on resettling already registered refugees in third countries, if they cannot be repatriated to their home nations, which is likely to be the case with the Rohingya and many of the other refugees from Myanmar. He added that authorities would continue regularly to engage and cooperate with UNHCR’s office in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Lukanisman said that around 5,000 Myanmar nationals currently in the immigration detention depot are set to be repatriated as soon as Myanmar is ready to accept them. “Approximately 5,000 Myanmar nationals who are currently detained at the depot will be repatriated to the Myanmar government and will be sent back using naval ships, subject to the resolution process,” he said. On its website, UNHCR describes the new DPP program as “an important step towards a structured, predictable, and nationally owned approach to protecting people forced to flee their country.” It says that it is “committed to supporting its implementation through technical advice, capacity sharing and cooperation, drawing on international standards and comparative practices.” However, the new program is a clear attempt by Malaysia’s government to take control of its immigration policy, out of a belief that UNHCR’s is applying too liberal criteria as to who can be granted refugee status. (Malaysia is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention.) It also reflects concerns about the growing difficulty of resettling refugees in third countries, particularly due to severe cuts to refugee admissions by the United States. Unsurprisingly, human rights groups expressed concerns about the possible impact of both the DPP program, and yesterday’s order for UNHCR to cease refugee registrations, which they said created a lot of uncertainties for those seeking asylum in future. Divya Shesshsan Balakrishnan, a spokesperson for Amnesty International Malaysia, said in a statement that Malaysia “should immediately clarify how asylum-seekers are to seek protection while UNHCR registration is suspended.” She also said that it should be transparent about “the assessment processes applied to those facing return to Myanmar, and ensure that no one is returned before their protection needs have been fully and fairly assessed.” In February 2021, Malaysia deported 1,086 Myanmar nationals, ignoring a court order granting a temporary stay against their return. Rights groups said that this cohort included UNHCR-registered refugees. Subscribe today and join thousands of diplomats, analysts, policy professionals and business readers who rely on The Diplomat for expert Asia-Pacific coverage. Get unlimited access to in-depth analysis you won't find anywhere else, from South China Sea tensions to ASEAN diplomacy to India-Pakistan relations. More than 5,000 articles a year. Already have an account? Log in. Sebastian Strangio is Southeast Asia editor at The Diplomat. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.