Little Napoleons Again, this time the Immigration Department

Reposted from
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/61853

Two-day ordeal at immigration dept


I absolutely agree with RKG’s letter that the immigration department in Malaysia is ruining the government’s effort to attract tourists as well as to popularise the Malaysia, My Second Home programme.

My French husband, who was then my fiance, and I had a similar experience at the Putrajaya immigration department a few months ago. We had gone there voluntarily to inform the immigration department of my husband’s expired visa and to apply for an extension. The fact is, as a French citizen, my husband is usually granted a three-month social visit pass upon arrival in Malaysia. It was his third visit to Malaysia then and we were both working abroad.

However, due to a mistake by an immigration officer at the KLIA airport, he was only given a one-month social visit pass. Undeniably, it was our own mistake for overlooking the fallibility of the officer and only noticed the mistake a few weeks after the visa expired. Upon this, we immediately went to the immigration department in Putrajaya to rectify the matter.

We were told that we would need to pay a fine of RM2,000 for overstaying to which we agreed, since we accepted our responsibility of overlooking the mistake. What could have been settled in a few hours turned out to be two full days spent at the immigration department! On the first day, we were told to wait despite the fact that we took a number and those who came later were attended to before us.

At the end of the day, we were told to come back the next day and that we had to submit a letter of explanation. We were not given any further explanation or direction as to why it was taking so long and we were reluctant to ask since most of the officers looked unfriendly and unhappy. We even saw and heard an officer screaming at one person at the counter. I felt embarrassed that my husband had to witness this.

When we came back the next day, we were told that we had been waiting at the wrong floor! We just could not understand why we were not told the day before. We couldn’t help but feel that we had been pushed around by the officers who didn’t seem to care or bother about our time.

When we finally met the appropriate officers for the matter, we had a private interview in an enclosed room. We went through the normal procedure of submitting a report to an officer who took down the statement while I acted as the translator since there was no appointed official translator there. Again, we told the officers that we agreed to pay for the fine and I would need to withdraw the money from an ATM machine in another building. My husband had to remain in their custody until the fine was to be paid.

I had to take quite a long walk to the ATM machine and by the time I returned, I was panting as I was walking briskly to get back as fast as I could. Then one of the officers asked me why I had rushed? Was I afraid that they would beat up my husband? Although it was a joke, we didn’t appreciate it since the gesture could easily be misinterpreted as something else. Funnily enough, we were then told that we could go and have lunch despite not having paid the fine. So we couldn’t understand what ‘game’ was being played by the officers.

After lunch, we were told to wait again at the common waiting room. The officer who took down my husband’s statement came to us in private and gave us his private mobile number and told us that if we needed any help, we should contact him only. He told us that he could help us to get our fine reduced. We were skeptical towards his kind gesture because we found it odd that an officer would provide us with his private number and asked us to contact him alone and help us get the fine reduced, despite us agreeing to pay for the RM2,000 fine. So we both agreed to ignore the officer’s offer because we were not willing to consider bribery as an option.

Of course, we then ended up having to wait for another full day and in the meantime, we were both summoned many times to answer some questions with several more officers, which we couldn’t understand since an official written statement had been taken. Since my husband couldn’t understand Bahasa Malaysia, I was asked many times why my husband had visited Malaysia so often. In my mind, I wanted to tell the officers that my husband loved Malaysia and was it against the law to visit the country? Instead, I told the officer that we were engaged and my husband usually accompanies me to Malaysia when I visit my family here. I tried my best to be patient and polite since I didn’t want to jeopardise my husband’s visa application. Then, I was asked to present official evidence that we were engaged!

I just couldn’t believe it and I told the officer that there is no paper to prove our engagement. I was literally asked this question many times by different officers. My husband came up with a theory that the officers were testing our patience so that we might just break and pay them a bribe to expedite the process. At the end of the day, we were finally told that we would pay RM100 only for a special pass to allow my husband to stay one more day in order for him to repatriate from the country. This was told to us by a senior officer who also took the opportunity to lecture us in public. Although we were grateful that we ended up paying much less, we believed that we were indeed just pushed and played around with. Whenever my husband is asked whether he likes Malaysia or not, he would always be reminded of his two-day ordeal at the immigration department. The truth is, he did like Malaysia which explains why he had decided to move to Malaysia to live with me. However, when he was treated like an illegal immigrant or a criminal, especially when he had voluntarily submitted himself to the immigration department, he can no longer imagine this country to be his second home.
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Note - One wonders about rules and procedure that the Department should follow. Firstly, French nationals are granted social visits Visas upon arrival. One would think a simple fine then an extension would suffice for him to cross the border and come back in again (he has automatic Visa upon arrival anyway).
But no, we need little Napoleons to play mind games with you and ensure their ego is boosted.