Stain on image of Malaysians

I REFER to the report “5,000 Malaysians are illegals in S. Korea” (The Star, March 13). To most Malaysians, this may come as a surprise but for someone like myself who has travelled to many countries, it is nothing new. I’ve met a lot of Malaysians who work illegally in many foreign countries.

I recently came back from a vacation in Europe where I took the bus from Paris to London with a friend who is Malaysian. There were four other Malaysians who were students in the bus. When we reached the London border control, all six of us were subjected to longer immigration checks compared to the other nationalities in the bus. I was asked by the UK border agent to show my cash, credit cards, flight tickets and my travel itineraries in Europe. I was also asked the same questions by a few other agents as they wanted to get consistent answers on the purpose of my visit to London, and that was for tourism.