Background

Malaysia has a booming economy and many jobs, which causes it to be very attractive to people trying to find better lives. This has caused there to be a huge amount of illegal immigrants entering into Malaysia. Illegal immigration has caused many problems for Malaysia including increased violence rates and deadly diseases being brought over from the different countries. Many of the illegal immigrants are coming from Indonesia, India, and Mynamar where Burmese refugees are trying to flee persecution.

Location

This problem is affecting Malaysia as a whole. The climate of Malaysia is hot and humid which is heavily influenced by their yearly monsoons. Malaysia has a very wide variety of plant and animal life. There are about 25,715,819 people in Malaysia and almost half the population is Malay. The most common religions are Muslim (60.4%) and Buddhist (19.2%).

Development

Many advances have been made to stop illegal immigration into Malaysia.

• 2002 the government made a concerted sweep of all illegal immigrants.
• 2005 the government issued biometric cards to foreign workers, which were used to check if they were illegal or not.
• 2005 the Prime ministers of both Malaysia and Indonesia came together to think of a plan to slow illegal immigration into Malaysia. They came up with several ideas including setting up 11 recruiting centers in Indonesia, so that it would be easier for the people to find jobs there.
  

Over the years the government of Malaysia has become harsher on illegal immigrants. Although Malaysia has improved this situation there is still a lot of violence used to get rid of the illegal immigrants and it has only increased over the years.

Impact

Illegal immigration has caused much turmoil in Malaysia.

1. When the illegal immigrants enter into Malaysia they are bringing in harmful diseases that have never been a problem in this area such as tuberculosis and leprosy.
2. Even though Malaysia's economy is doing well many of their people are looking for jobs but are not able to find them since the illegal immigrants are occupying them.
3. It has taken a lot of government time and money which could be used in other areas such as education or new development.

Not only are the people of Malaysia affected, but the immigrants themselves are too, because when they are deported they are often sold into slavery or abused.

Future

In the future this situation will affect the region by causing there to be even more diseases and will increase the population which could lead to another problem of over population. The government has put in many laws restricting the employment of illegal immigrants. They have also become stricter on the illegal immigrants and have made consequences for any illegal immigrants who are found.

Description of current event:
People coming from Bangladesh are posing as students so they can enter into Malaysia. While they are there they are harassing the local women and.

Link to current event:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4802796.stm

Big Picture

The culture and language of Malaysia have impacted their immigration problem because when immigrants move, a bug pull factor is whether or not the ethnic groups and languages are similar to them. Another big pull factor is the economy so that makes Malaysia very attractive because they have a good economy. My topic relates to the geographic concept immigration because illegal immigration has become a huge problem in Malaysia and it is similar to many other countries dealing with illegal immigration. My topic can help other countries with similar problems because they have been dealing with the situation for a very long time and have made many advances in solving it, but have also had many problems. Other countries can learn from their downfalls and know what not to do while trying to solve their problem.