KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 — The National Registration Department (NRD) has uncovered several ways that are being used by some foreigners in Sarawak to gain Malaysian citizenship illegally.
According to the state NRD director Jasni Jubli, one way was for a foreigner to send in multiple applications under different names from his original name, online portal The Borneo Times reported today.
“We also found out another attempt to obtain citizenship by becoming adopted children of local people. They will come over to the locations when they learn about our mobile registration operations and try to insert the names of their family members as adopted children,” he was quoted saying at a news conference in Kuching yesterday.
Jasni said the department’s special task force discovered the pattern when its officers held application interviews in the presence of village chiefs and community leaders who identified that the applicants are not locals.
The NRD special task force had carried 158 operations in Sarawak up till November 28 where they received 6,784 applications for late registration of births and approved 4,586 applications and rejected 2,198 applications.
The applications were rejected on various grounds including being non-citizen, non-biological child, not born in Sarawak and others.
According to Jasni further, the area with the most number of rejected applications is in Baram. However, the news report did not provide a figure.
Also at the same news conference was Sarawak Welfare, Community, Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah who said the authorities relied on community leaders to distinguish between genuine locals and foreigners.
