JULY 12 — Every few months, the same headline returns: immigration officers raiding a construction site or market before dawn, foreign workers led away without documents. The term is PATI, short for Pendatang Asing Tanpa Izin, meaning “foreigner without a permit”. Few Malaysians stop to ask what it really means for our security, our economy, and our standing in the region.

Estimates of how many undocumented foreigners live in Malaysia vary widely, from around one million to several million, which itself shows how hard the problem is to measure. Whatever the true number, undocumented migration is not a fringe issue: it touches our construction sites, plantations, factories, restaurants, and our national conversation about who belongs.

A human problem before a security one

It would be easy, and unfair, to treat PATI purely as a threat. Most undocumented foreigners here are not criminals but labourers, cooks, cleaners and caregivers, often brought in by agents who took their money and gave false promises. A worker whose passport was withheld by an employer, or a mother who fled conflict in Myanmar, is not the same as a trafficker profiting from human misery. Painting everyone with the same brush solves nothing and damages Malaysia’s reputation as a country that treats people with dignity.

Where international security comes in

Still, PATI cannot be separated from regional security. Malaysia sits along some of Southeast Asia’s busiest, most porous maritime routes, and where legal migration is slow or costly, trafficking and smuggling syndicates fill the gap. Enforcement that only catches workers after arrival does little to weaken the networks that brought them here.

Political instability in Myanmar since 2021 has also pushed refugees toward Malaysia, testing Asean’s ability to manage displacement together. How we treat these arrivals is watched closely by our neighbours and the wider international community. Heavy-handed raids or deportations into danger can strain diplomatic ties even when the intent was simply to enforce the law.

The economic reality

Malaysia’s dependence on migrant labour, documented and undocumented, is undeniable. Migrants fill much of our construction, plantation, manufacturing and domestic-work sectors. Lacking legal protection, undocumented workers often accept lower wages, quietly suppressing conditions even for local workers in the same industries. Yet mass raids and detention are costly to run and can strip a factory or plantation of its workforce overnight, disrupting production. The cost of this issue is paid whether we ignore it or address it by force alone.

What diplomacy teaches us

Having studied international relations with a focus on diplomacy and security, I believe our response should borrow more from diplomacy than enforcement alone. Three lessons stand out. First, bilateral agreements with labour-sending countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal must be actively enforced, not just signed, by monitoring agents and cutting recruitment fees so the legal route is not the slower, costlier one. Second, this is a regional problem needing a regional answer: Asean mechanisms on migrant labour and trafficking should move from statements to shared patrols and intelligence. Third, enforcement should pair with earned regularisation, not replace it: programmes letting long-staying workers register and pay a penalty, in the spirit of the past 6P programme, make people easier to protect, tax and account for than if left in the shadows.

A firm but humane path

None of this excuses genuine crime. Traffickers, forgers and exploitative employers deserve the full force of the law. But the millions of ordinary undocumented foreigners already among us are better managed through structured, humane policy than through raids that make headlines without solving the problem. Malaysia has a chance to lead the region on this by pairing firmness with fairness, strengthening our security and economy while enhancing our credibility as a responsible Asean partner. That is what good diplomacy is meant to achieve: solving hard problems without losing our humanity.

* Nevhan Phrassantha Naidu Puspakaran is an alumnus of the National Defence University of Malaysia, holding a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, majoring in Diplomacy and International Security.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.