Legal foreign workers can heave a sigh of relief as the deadline for biometric registration has been

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said yesterday the programme would run parallel with the registration of illegal foreign workers, which starts on Monday.

The biometric registration, launched on July 13, was scheduled to end tomorrow.

"The extension is due to appeals and requests from employers. Some waited till the late minute, so I hope they will now come forward," he said after handing over 100 identification documents to Malaysian Indians at the Putra World Trade Centre.

"In other words, the biometric registration will go on until further notice. I have learned that setting a deadline will only result in everyone coming to register at the last moment."

Asked about the possibility of foreign workers not registering for lack of a deadline, Hishammuddin said the authorities could decide on deportation.

"They cannot blame the government if they do not register and are deported."

Deportation is the last resort under the programme of six measures (6P) aimed at gathering data on foreign workers, including their places of work, employers and salaries, towards the objective of reducing social and crime issues that are often linked to them.

The programme begins with registration, legalisation, amnesty, monitoring and enforcement.

As for illegal workers, Hishammuddin said there was no accurate number of those working without permit in the country.

"But if the number of legal workers could come up to two million, we wonder how many illegals are working here."

In Putrajaya, Home Ministry deputy secretary-general Datuk Alwi Ibrahim said as of Thursday, 561,149 legal foreign workers had undergone biometric registration, the majority of them factory and plantation workers.

A total of 41,420 employers had registered their workers, he said at a briefing on the 6P programme.

Alwi also said two individuals were nabbed by Immigration officers for selling waiting slips at the Immigration office in Damansara on Thursday.

The suspects, a local man and woman, sold the waiting slips for RM100 and RM300 respectively to those who thought the slips would expedite their registration.

They were nabbed after victims lodged complaints when they discovered that the waiting slips were bogus.