After Nunukan: The Regulation of Indonesian Migration to Malaysia

Labour migration from Indonesia is a complex phenomenon. Migrants enter Malaysia via a range of formal, semi-formal and informal channels, primarily through Sumatra and Kalimantan. Although Indonesian authorities make little effort to stop semi-formal and informal migration flows, the Malaysian government constantly adjusts its policies towards both documented and undocumented labour migrants according to the condition of its labour market. Periodically these adjustments have involved the mass arrest and deportation of undocumented workers, for example when hundreds of thousands of Indonesian workers were expelled from Eastern Malaysia to the tiny town of Nunukan in East Kalimantan in mid-2002. Both the Indonesian and Malaysian governments have failed to recognise the impact of the Malaysian government’s policies on transit zones such as Riau and East Kalimantan, and that more serious efforts at bilateral cooperation must be made in order to lessen the social costs of labour migration in these zones.