KUALA LANGAT: An estimate of 500,000 illegal foreign workers have yet to signed up for the Immigration Department's enforcement card (E-kad), a temporary card to legalise their employment.
Immigration Department director-general Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali said despite the six months period given for employers and their illegal foreign workers to apply for the E-kad from Feb 15, the response to the June 30 deadline have been poor.
"Until June 7, only 104,507 illegal foreign workers with employers are registered with us and majority of them are from the construction and service industries. Those figures are very low and we are expecting a surge of application within these two weeks as we know of the common last minute culture.
"We are very strict with the deadline and are not going to extend it. We have given sufficient time and have extended operation hours to ease the process of the e-kad application at our headquarters as well as state offices.
"From July 1 onwards, we will intensify enforcement operations against employers that have illegal foreign workers. We will not compromise. Employers can be fined up to RM10,000 for each illegal foreign worker and risk being caned if found guilty by the court. The illegal foreign workers will be deported to their respective countries.
"A six month period have been given for employers to apply for the card for free and awareness on it was heightened. So employers should not blame us if action is taken against them," said Mustafar at the breaking of fast with orphans at At-Taqwa mosque,here, today.
Upon the issuance of the e-kad which will expire on Feb next year, employers must take steps to apply for their workers passports from their respective embassies and work permits.
The department are expecting for applications for employees for the plantation, agriculture,industrial,construction and service industries to tackle the lack of manpower issue.
The e-kad, which has safety features and the biometrics of the employer and its employees, takes take two days to process and serves as a temporary document while waiting for the replacement of a valid travel document from an embassy.