A permanent resident applying for citizenship has claimed that immigration officers had told her that her main duty, if granted citizenship, would be to vote for the “ruling party”. In an email interview, the applicant, who was born and bred in Malaysia, said the officers had explicitly said this to her when she was being interviewed as part of the citizenship application process.
"(They asked me) 'What would you do with Malaysian citizenship? What is your main duty?'.
"I answered that I would support young people because it's my passion," she said, requesting anonymity so as to not jeopardise the outcome of the application. "
The applicant, who had approached Malaysiakini with her story on Saturday, said her parents had also been told the same thing. They had migrated to Malaysia from South Asia in the 1970s when offered professional postings here.
“I don't remember what I said next, probably something about 'What if the ruling party changes next time I get to vote?' which they brushed off... I was fuming,” she said.
“Permanent residency is not a 'gift'. I was born and raised (here) but due to a lack of jus soli, I was born a foreigner.”
(Jus soli refers to the principle that a person's nationality at birth is determined by the place of birth.)
She was not automatically made permanent resident upon birth as her parents, who had at that point been in Malaysia for more than a decade, had not been granted that status.
Their applications for permanent residency were only approved in the 1990s. “(The permanent residency application process was) a process fraught with sabotage and ineptitude... (Permanent residents) get (fewer) rights than some people on temporary visas and no one knows what to do with (us),” she said.
Second attempt
The recent interview with immigration was the family's second attempt at applying for citizenship.
Her father had failed in the first attempt because his essay in the written test was 10 words short of the required 150 words.
“You can't appeal, so we had to go through it again,” she said of the initial application which was submitted in the early 2000s.
As she was under 21 at the time, her application was automatically rejected along with her father's.
“It didn't matter that I had got 'A' for Bahasa Malaysia in the SPM (examination),” said the applicant, who had gone through the national schooling system.
“I'm hopefully going through the final stretch. My dad had to find people within the system to make sure we were approved. It's been a year-and-a-half of hassle and waiting. I just want this to be over.”
source:malaysiakini
Pemohon PR diingatkan mengundi 'parti pemerintah'
cheers.
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