Methods

This article is based on ongoing research with refugees in Malaysia since 2015, including two years of Aslam's PhD fieldwork conducted from November 2019 until November 2021 (24 months) in peninsular Malaysia working with a range of refugee communities, especially from Myanmar. The fieldwork, which sought to explore the right to work for refugees in Malaysia, was conducted mainly in the urban Klang Valley, an area that encompasses the national capital of Kuala Lumpur and peri-urban areas in the neighboring state of Selangor. The PhD fieldwork entailed 55 semi-structured interviews with 70 participants, including 43 refugees (of whom seven were women) aged between 20 and 50, and 27 stakeholders. In the Klang Valley, participant observation of refugees’ daily work lives, especially in wet markets was conducted primarily with refugees from Myanmar. Prior to the PhD research, between 2014 and 2016, Aslam volunteered in UNHCR Malaysia's education, livelihood, and registration units. This provided a broad understanding of UNHCR's work and its operational environment. After leaving UNHCR, Aslam continued to volunteer with refugees in a private capacity before commencing a PhD in late 2018. This article also draws on interviews conducted by both authors with stakeholders from various government agencies, NGOs, CBOs, refugee communities, and private service providers. We also gathered information from online sources such as news portals, websites, and public officials’ social media accounts during the fieldwork period; these provided information about the roles and activities conducted by policymakers and stakeholders, which we then examined in relation to the realities faced by refugees and service providers on the ground. While a more detailed reflection on the implications of our respective positionalities is beyond the scope of this article, Aslam is an ethnic Malay Muslim Malaysian man whose cultural capital and “insider perspectives” of Malaysian policy circles and Malaysian attitudes toward refugees have enabled him to engage with relevant state authorities as part of this research; in turn, Gerhard is a white male foreigner who has conducted extensive ethnographic work with refugee communities in Malaysia over the last 15 years, with his long-standing relationships in refugee communities meaning that a wide range of stakeholders was willing to engage with the research. Together, our individual and joint research experiences have facilitated diverse and meaningful data collection, especially on an issue that is still deemed “sensitive” in Malaysia.

Neoliberal Governmentality in Refugee Management

This article engages with neoliberal governmentality, data justice/sovereignty, and biometric assemblages and their effects on refugees in Malaysia. Governmentality refers to the rationality and practices adopted to control and manage populations and their actions as part of a power “ensemble” also consisting of sovereignty and discipline (Foucault et al. 2009). Neoliberalism as a type of governmentality from a Foucauldian perspective is a network of political power (Rose and Miller 1992). This consists of political programs, actors, and institutions as well as techniques, practices, and ideas. In turn, neoliberal governmentality refers to the “forms of governance that encourage both institutions and individuals to conform to the norms of the market” or “market governance” (Larner 2000: 12). Individuals are expected to be autonomous and active subjects who should depend on themselves without relying on the state (Larner 2000: 13). In Malaysia, Nah has shown how governmentality creates a hierarchy of deservingness that differentiates between citizens, regularized non-citizens, and non-citizens with irregular status (including refugees) (2011: 333–345). The hierarchy creates a particular social order by limiting rights and entitlements for refugees who are positioned at the bottom of the hierarchy. Such differential treatment of populations also maintains boundaries between different groups and disincentivizes solidarity and cooperation across these boundaries. Thus, neoliberal governmentality involves the exclusion of marginalized groups, such as refugees, by promoting securitization and creating a state of exception for them (Tosa 2009). Refugees are targeted with different types of disciplinary measures that reduce them to “bare lives” (Agamben 1998). Neoliberalism and neoliberal governmentality here do not mean less governance; it means fewer government roles (Larner 2000). This explains why neoliberal governmentality promotes bureaucracy and inefficiency in asylum processes (Conlon 2019: 388–390). Such inefficiencies often result in long waiting times and asylum seekers needing to demonstrate their flexibility to adapt to ever-changing policy frameworks and a new environment. The Malaysian government and the UNHCR rely on an understanding of refugees as independent and self-sufficient, consonant with a neoliberal approach to their governance. Thus, a lack of support from the government and the UNHCR, a hostile sociopolitical environment, and policy confusion all make life harder for refugees and are part of the government's ultimate aim to deter asylum claims (Lego 2012). This is because the presence of refugees recognized by UNHCR is deemed a security threat by the Malaysian government, and therefore the state wants to reduce the numbers. Recognition by the UNHCR is also perceived by the state to be a pull factor that attracts more refugees to Malaysia, which has been a constant concern to the Malaysian government (Rabbani 2022).

In Refugee Convention signatory countries, the steady outsourcing of asylum and immigration processes often privatizes profits and retains the legal responsibilities with the public and state (Dehm 2020). In Malaysia, we argue, there is no state or public legal responsibility, which allows efforts to privatize profits to proceed unchecked. Indeed, these collaborations between the state apparatus and private-sector providers are legal and profitable (Menz 2013). Consequently, private actors become more than “economic actors” because they also influence the migration policy and implementation (Betts 2013), obscuring accountability and good governance. This is especially the case when private companies use technology and digital identities to implement humanitarian programs. These have become omnipresent in the development sector and refugee aid delivery as biometric registration is seen as a panacea to accountability and identity authentication gaps in the sector. Madianou has conceptualized “technocolonialism” to highlight the “convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures and market forces and the extent to which they reinvigorate and rework colonial relationships of dependency” (Madianou 2019: 2). We deploy technocolonialism to show how the state, the UNHCR, and a private actor all engage in biometric data collection without adequate data justice and security for those affected, that is, refugees. Thus, refugees, become subject to power relationships that map onto former colonial structures. During colonial rule, a small number of colonizers were able to categorize, control, and profit from the people they ostensibly served. Malaysia was largely colonized using the resident system of British colonialism, where in some instances a single British official “advised” the local sovereign Sultan while maintaining a British stranglehold on the economy and polity. Today, refugees too are subjected to an infrastructure of categorization and control by a few bureaucrats that have an indelible impact on their lives.

Bureaucrats are nowadays joined by the private sector. Increasingly, sensitive refugee biometric data are collected by both state and humanitarian actors who collaborate with the private sector (Twigt 2023). The state assumes and asserts that the private sector has their own unique expertise that the state does not have. However, in refugee registration, diffusing responsibilities from one party to another creates delays and increases precarity for refugees. This resonates with the concept of “grey sovereignty” (Sharples, this volume), characterized as state acts of manipulating laws and regulations that undermine sovereignty and humanitarianism to prevent asylum seeking. Using a neoliberal governmentality lens, the next section examines refugee registration schemes in Malaysia conducted by the state, UNHCR, CBOs/NGOs, and a private company. Then, it discusses what impacts recent policy shifts have had on refugees’ protection.

Responsibility Diffusions in Malaysia

Malaysia's experiences of providing sanctuary to refugees show that being a non-signatory to the Refugee Convention does not hinder Malaysia from providing protection to refugees, although the Malaysian government eschews the “refugee” label (see Lego 2013). Malaysia has existing legislative and administrative frameworks to register and protect refugees, even in the absence of a domestic asylum framework. Section 55 of the Immigration Act 1959/63 and Section 4 of the Passports Act 1966 provide the minister with exemption powers that have been exercised several times over the past few decades for select groups of people fleeing persecution as outlined above. On such occasions, the government issued IMM13 documents, or what could be called Malaysia's version of a “humanitarian visa” that allows temporary residency with the right to work, access to education and healthcare. However, the process conducted by various state agencies is not clear, and guidelines to apply for IMM13 documents are rarely known or made public. In the case of Moro refugees, UNHCR ceased its operations in 1987 in Sabah as the issuance of IMM13 documents showed the government's commitment to take greater responsibility for the refugees (UNHCR 2016). However, IMM13 needs to be renewed annually for a fee, which has proven too costly or onerous for many, resulting in increased statelessness in the community due to expired documents and unrecorded new births (Allerton 2014). IMM13 is a “living document” because it provides a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship through the issuance of government identity cards subject to approval through a separate application process (Khairi 2012).

Despite having the frameworks to accept refugees, Malaysia refuses to take any formal responsibility. UNHCR fills this responsibility vacuum by registering refugees. Malaysia is one of the UNHCR's largest registration operations and faces many challenges, such as a lack of staff and training, long waiting times for refugee status determination (RSD), and a difficult local context (Stainsby 2009). The main impasse is political as the Malaysian government accuses the UNHCR of undermining national sovereignty by registering and issuing cards to foreigners (Povera and Yunus 2022) but offers no concrete solution. The RSD process conducted solely by the UNHCR remains ineffective (Nordin et al. 2021) and leads to inadequate refugee protection, including arrest and deportation. In October 2022, partly in response to parliamentarians criticizing the UNHCR, the government expressed interest in getting actively involved in the RSD process (FMT Reporters 2022a) but with no follow up. As Michael Kagan (2012: 317) observed over a decade ago: “UNHCR is often trapped into accepting quasi-government functions indefinitely, fearful that if it pulls back, refugees would simply be abandoned because host governments would be unwilling to step in.”

As the custodian of refugees in Malaysia, the UNHCR functions like a “surrogate state” (Nah 2019) that collaborates with the refugee community and civil society to fulfill its mandate. UNHCR's mandate is to provide protection to refugees and register people who require international protection. The Malaysian government, meanwhile, warns the UNHCR to not “simply register” anyone and to discourage refugee arrivals (Rabbani 2022). Therefore, the UNHCR in Malaysia has set specific requirements for individuals to access UNHCR for registration. For instance, UNHCR will not register individuals until their documents or visas in Malaysia have expired (Hunt and Errington 2013). Furthermore, as is the case in many UNHCR offices around the world, refugees from Myanmar cannot enter the UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur unless they have an appointment. UNHCR utilizes refugee CBOs and NGO networks to collect preliminary information on UNHCR's behalf. Refugees from Myanmar must register with CBOs, who will forward their registration lists to the UNHCR (Hoffstaedter 2015). Avoiding the need for thousands of people to queue outside the UNHCR's gates, around 75,000 individuals were registered by UNHCR through this decentralized approach between 2008 and 2010 alone (Crisp et al. 2012: 21).

This practice of outsourcing some of its registration obligations to CBOs has also created barriers for asylum seekers. This approach favors well established and organized CBOs and introduced costs to the registration process. Although the UNHCR registration services are free, CBOs charge membership fees to support their organizational work as well as these registration processes. This works to create distance between asylum seekers and the UNHCR and the registration regime. It also creates a neoliberal refugee subject who must have initiative to navigate the challenges of accessing UNHCR registration through CBOs.

This process is fraught with problems as evidenced by a major fraud case in 2014 perpetrated by some UNHCR employees and some community leaders against their own members (Aljazeera 2014). The UNHCR confirmed that 3,000 cases of mostly ethnic Chin from Myanmar assumed fellow refugees’ identities to get registered more quickly and one-third of them had been resettled to the United States, Canada, and Australia. This exposé tarnished the UNHCR's registration process severely and forced the UNHCR to introduce a new biometric ID card for registered refugees. This radically changed the UNHCR registration process from one where refugee testimony, that is, their story, was paramount (if often questioned by interrogating the “credibility” of applicants’ testimonies) to one that has become data driven. Most refugees lack identification documents, especially stateless refugees. Their only identity verification data remains inscribed on their body through their biodata. Many refugees destroy their identity documents to safeguard their true identity during their flight and thus all they have is their biodata to prove their true identity. Handling such elementary data must be done with care as exposing identities can cause harm. This happened to Rohingya refugees in refugee camps in Bangladesh in 2021, where their biometric data was shared by the UNHCR with Myanmar authorities without their consent (HRW 2021).

In 2020, UNHCR Malaysia also introduced a new website that allows asylum seekers and refugees to contact them directly online. Through a specific website (refugeemalaysia.org), any individual can provide relevant information to UNHCR, such as start a new registration, register family members, and update their personal details without going through CBOs. However, due to the long waiting period, refugees still seek the help of CBOs to write recommendation letters in the hope of expediting their application process (Refugee Malaysia 2023). As Sara Riva and Gerhard Hoffstaedter have shown, CBOs, as brokers, have become an integral part of the asylum-seeking process in Malaysia and elsewhere as part of a neoliberalization of the asylum system (Riva and Hoffstaedter 2021) and offer many services beyond registration (McConnachie 2019). Refugees must pay for these services, with CBO refugee cards costing around RM 50 (USD 10.60).

In a context where CBOs play such a significant role, Rohingya are most affected by the lack of a clear community (leadership) structure (Putri and Gabiella 2022). Rohingya form the biggest refugee group in Malaysia and are scattered throughout the peninsula making it challenging for the community to organize and represent their interests. Many Rohingya have been waiting for several years to get an appointment with the UNHCR. In our interviews, some Rohingya told us that, because of the long waiting time for UNHCR registration through CBOs, their only option was to be detained in an Immigration Detention Center (IDC), which regularly invites the UNHCR to verify refugees’ identities. However, since August 2019, UNHCR has been unable to access IDCs because the Immigration Department alleges that UNHCR has abused this privilege by registering more people as refugees instead of only verifying existing refugee statuses. Meanwhile, people without UNHCR documentation continue to face criminalization through arrest, detention, and deportation. These risks intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was used to justify harsher securitization measures that have further limited access to refugee registration and protection (Crawley 2021).

Because of capacity issues, the UNHCR has developed a mechanism that prioritizes those people categorized by the institution as “most vulnerable” for registration, rather than maintaining a queue. This entails writing to the UNHCR with a specific case to expedite registration. Due to long waiting periods, letter writing services have mushroomed, especially within the Rohingya community who have a low literacy rate due to decades of education deprivation. With an average cost of RM 50 (USD 10.60), some enterprising Rohingya who are versed in English write letters to the UNHCR. The continuous letter sending through multiple media (fax, emails, mail) causes major backlogs because the UNHCR lacks staff to process applications. This has led to some desperate refugees finding different strategies to enter the UNHCR registration process by any means. Pregnancy and childbirth, for example, expedite registration with UNHCR as they place the applicants into a “vulnerable” group. As a result, many Rohingya women are reduced to a position of “mothers” to safeguard their family's access to registration and to political and legal status (refugees). As a result, many women lose control over their bodies as husbands pressure wives into these situations (Voisin 2021), or women may feel obligated to perform this role to provide protection to their families.

Besides CBOs, UNHCR also relies on NGOs and individuals through its Partner Referral Network, which was established in 2015. The network allows organizations that work closely with refugees and the UNHCR to refer individuals in situations of vulnerability to UNHCR directly, including for registration. This system allows refugees who reach out to NGOs to have their cases processed by UNHCR faster and smoother, thus expanding the protection space. Nevertheless, there are two main setbacks of the system. First, NGO partners have inadequate resources, especially access to funding and training. Although UNHCR provides occasional program briefings, there is lack of regular training to ensure a clear understanding of the process. Second, the UNHCR does not communicate their decision-making process well to NGO partners. UNHCR does provide a handbook as a guide for referral partners outlining the criteria of referral prioritization based on situations of individual vulnerability. Thus, with a relatively small staff and lack of funding, UNHCR has been dependent on the CBOs and the partner referral system over the years and eventually UNHCR diffuses its responsibility toward refugees to organizations on the frontline. This sort of neoliberal governmentality allows UNHCR to govern a large refugee population, reinforcing colonial modes of control as described earlier. In the midst of responsibility diffusions from various actors, the private sector seizes the opportunity to profit from the registration scheme.

Outsourcing to the Private Sector

Neoliberalism encourages public–private relations through the privatization of border control by the state to private security companies (Lemberg-Pedersen 2012). In European borderscapes, private security companies are not only given active roles in policy forums but they are also funded by powerful financial actors to develop expertise (Lemberg-Pedersen 2012: 163–168). In Malaysia, a private security company is now involved in refugee registration. In 2017, the government made it mandatory for all asylum seekers and refugees to register with the Tracking Refugee Information System (TRIS) registration scheme run by a private company called Barisan Mahamega Sdn. Bhd. The chairman of TRIS is a former Royal Malaysian Police Special Branch Director. The registration is conducted in parallel to the UNHCR registration with the issuance of a Malaysia Refugee Card or MyRC as a “special Identity Card.” According to an officer from TRIS, MyRC is not a legal document, because its primary purpose is to collect data from all asylum seekers and refugees living in the country for the Malaysian authorities (fieldwork interview, September 2020). TRIS was introduced as a “census mechanism” with no additional rights and benefits to refugees.

There is also an obvious conflict of interest between TRIS and the government due to the clear connection between the company's chairman and the authorities. In September 2022, the Minister of Home Affairs again called on UNHCR cardholders to register with TRIS. To encourage more registrations, he proposed that only those registered with TRIS could access jobs and training as well as healthcare and education (FMT Reporters 2022b). This proposal and its implied conditionality seem a deliberate governmental strategy to collect more data and to allow a private company to pursue their profit-making agenda.

The MyRC incurs a RM 500 (USD 105.60) annual fee for those aged between 19 and 59. To register with TRIS, a person must have proof of their registration with UNHCR or UNHCR- recognized CBOs. Refugees must also provide marriage and birth certificates, their home address and, if they work, their employer's business card and address. TRIS MyRC has 21 security features and collects biometric data, including ten fingerprints, voice and facial recognition, and the individual's blood group (Bernama 2017). As of September 2020, TRIS had registered 26,314 individuals across peninsular Malaysia (fieldwork interview, 2020) while the UNHCR registration recorded over 170,000. However, only half of the TRIS number have a valid and active MyRC. Many are unable to afford the high costs of the card and transportation to the TRIS office, especially if they live outside of the Klang Valley.

For those who have registered with UNHCR but are still waiting for a UNHCR card, registering with TRIS is an option to have some form of documentation. With the logos of the Malaysian government, police, and the Immigration Department as well as the signatures of the Inspector General Police and Immigration Director General and the description “This is the property of the Government of Malaysia,” the card looks like a legitimate government issued ID.

A Pakistani family of four who has been in Malaysia since 2013 was an early adopter and registered with TRIS. They did not have a UNHCR card yet but had started the registration process and were issued with an A4-sized Under Consideration (UC) letter by the UNHCR. While waiting for their refugee claim to be processed by the UNHCR, they were constantly worried about being arrested since a UC letter is not recognized by the authorities. They decided to register with MyRC after not being called for an RSD interview for several years. Because of financial constraints, the family could only afford to pay for two family members to register for two years—the adult son and the mother. Their under-18 daughter could register for free as she was a dependent. The MyRC cards proved to be useful because it was sufficient proof of identity for police on several occasions when their son was stopped. The family eventually received their refugee status and UNHCR cards in mid-2021 and saw no more benefit in renewing their MyRC cards. They only have UNHCR documentation now.

Nonetheless, some MyRC cardholders are still arrested by the police. In such cases, the police usually contact TRIS management to verify the registration status and subsequently release the MyRC cardholders. In the past few years, TRIS has been actively explaining their scheme to police officers. Some refugee community leaders noted that in 2017 TRIS had persuaded them to encourage registration. A TRIS middle manager mentioned the possibility of work rights with MyRC during their engagement with the refugee community (fieldwork interviews, June 2020), something that has not yet materialized to date. In June 2018, UNHCR issued a community message: “UNHCR does not recommend that cardholders pay the RM 500 requested by the company” (UNHCR 2018). Due to a change of government in May 2018, UNHCR sought clarification on TRIS registration with the new government. UNHCR's latest announcement in July 2022, four years after the previous announcement, stated that they were still seeking clarification from the government.

However, in 2018 UNHCR endorsed TRIS MyRC for unregistered Chin refugees (Bik 2019: 71). UNHCR had decided it was safe for Chin to return to Myanmar at this point and introduced a cessation policy that proposed the termination of refugee status for ethnic Chin from Myanmar residing in Malaysia, India, Thailand, and Nepal by 1 January 2020. Chin refugees could choose to either keep their refugee status until 31 December 2019 or undergo an interview to reassess their status in which they might lose or renew their UNHCR card based on the interview. However, there was a lack of proper consultation with all stakeholders and a lack of transparency. UNHCR did not share their full assessment of the situation in Chin state (Vijayaraghavan and Saxena 2019) and the Malaysian government was “not officially notified” by the UNHCR about the Chin cessation policy (Chow and Yee 2019). The UNHCR also had few consultations with the Chin community, and UNHCR's assessment of the situation in Chin state contradicted realities on the ground. There was also an absence of a tripartite commission between UNHCR, host and origin countries to ensure the safety of returnees (Chuah and Nungsari 2020). This demonstrates UNHCR's complicity in outsourcing processes that can undermine refugee protection. The UNHCR later backtracked its suggestion regarding TRIS as an alternative for Chin refugees (fieldwork data, 2022). This example showed that the UNHCR was willing to outsource its responsibilities to a private company if it helped them transition a group of refugees they were considering to withdraw protection from. If UNHCR's proposal regarding TRIS had proceeded, it would have set a precedent for outsourcing its protection responsibilities to a private company with vested interests.

Maintaining the Status Quo and Reinforcing Borders

The previous section has outlined how neoliberal governmentality has shaped the diffusion of responsibility between and within refugee registration schemes in Malaysia. This section discusses the implications of neoliberal practices on the current policy and how it may undermine refugee protection by maintaining the status quo and reinforcing borders. Under neoliberalism, refugees are expected to be independent and autonomous without being dependent on the state. However, legal and procedural barriers in Malaysia hinder refugees from fully integrating socially and economically, especially through formal processes of permanent residency or citizenship and this reinforces their dependency on others. As explained earlier, being a non-signatory country to the Refugee Convention did not stop Malaysia from registering and managing refugees within the existing legislative and administrative frameworks independently from the UNHCR. However, the Malaysian state has no interest in taking any formal responsibility for all refugees. To avoid this, they hide behind “humanitarian grounds” in responding to refugee issues on an ad hoc and case by case basis dependent on political and sociocultural expediency (Hoffstaedter 2017).

The lack of sociolegal status puts refugees in multidimensional precarities as they struggle to build their livelihoods in a host country (Ertorer 2021). The Malaysian state always emphasizes the temporality of refugees and asserts that Malaysia is a transit country despite hosting up to four generations of stateless Rohingya. Although refugees have become part of the fabric of Malaysian society, the government still refuses to take any responsibility for them and blames the UNHCR for any issues with the refugee community.

The UNHCR has been governing refugees from a distance by working with CBOs and NGOs. As the waiting period for registration takes between a few months and up to several years, the UNHCR can deflect some of the blame for the slow process to the frontline of CBOs and NGOs. The disconnect between UNHCR and those who are seeking asylum became most evident when some refugees felt that being detained at IDCs was the only way to access UNHCR registration.

The Malaysian government, meanwhile, continues to paint refugees as a burden on the state and society. The Immigration Director General in 2021 reiterated the issue of what he called “illegal migrants” (including refugees) by claiming that they are “not paying tax and levy but reap all the benefits” and emphasized that he was “protecting the rights of local people” (Daud 2021). The Malaysian government regularly conducts amnesty programs for undocumented migrants to be regularized (for a substantial fee) or are forcibly returned to their countries of origin (after paying a substantial fine). By the end of each program, the government will announce the total revenue collected to demonstrate the financial value of documenting and registering undocumented people. This logic also applies to the TRIS registration scheme because refugees must compensate the state and the private contractor to allow them to stay in Malaysia. Here, surveillance and disciplining techniques are implemented by the private sector based on the neoliberal belief that the private sector is more efficient and the state can save costs (Menz 2013: 114), but also to allow for “systems of suffering” to exploit refugees further (Darling 2022). In Malaysia, the state refuses to regularize all refugees through work permits, such as IMM13, that would allow them to contribute to the country (Jalil 2023). Instead, a private contractor can profit, facilitated by Malaysian authorities unwilling to take any responsibility.

In addition to such data monetization concerns, data sovereignty itself is an issue as digital technologies have been instrumental in refugee datafication worldwide. We argue that refugee data in Malaysia is instrumentalized and extracted through a form of technocolonialism, which both points to the inherent inequalities in humanitarianism and those embedded in digital technology (Madianou 2019). This is despite the fact that there is inadequate evidence to show how biometric identification prevents fraud in accessing humanitarian assistance (Twigt 2023: 12).

UNHCR shares general data with the Malaysian authorities monthly, but the Malaysian government insists on collecting more data about refugees from UNHCR. The TRIS registration requires detailed information such as their biometrics, including voice and iris recognition, and fingerprints to digitalize the refugee body. Such biometric technologies have been shown to be discriminatory and to materialize inequalities (Madianou 2019: 8–9). TRIS also records applicants’ addresses and those of their employers. Since they are required to provide their home and workplace addresses, it can easily implicate landlords and employers alike for the offense of “harboring PATI” as stipulated under the immigration rules. In turn, it puts employers at risk for breaching immigration laws by hiring workers without a permit. It also endangers the livelihoods of refugees who depend on work to sustain themselves. Moreover, refugees’ sensitive and personal information can be used to control and monitor refugees and becomes part of internal bordering practices. This was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when refugees became a visible political flashpoint in Malaysia, with the state and ordinary citizens alike using them as scapegoats (Jalil and Hoffstaedter 2023). In the interest of public health, the authorities gave initial assurances that undocumented people, including refugees, would not be arrested when they underwent COVID-19 tests. This trust was broken when the authorities arrested hundreds of refugees, including women and children, in several immigration raids after identifying their places of residence (Fishbein and Hkawng 2021). In June 2021, the Home Minister declared several locations throughout peninsular Malaysia “foreigner hotspots” on his official Facebook page, implying they were also COVID-19 hotspots and therefore a danger (Zainudin 2021). The minister thanked the public for the information and assured that the authorities would continue to surveil and monitor those locations to ensure public order.

Increased data collection and the privatization of that data through registration schemes like TRIS MyRC further endangers refugees and their already limited protection space in Malaysia. Thus, refugees lose any “sovereignty of data.” This datafication process and the collection of refugee biometrics measure refugee lives and create a database without a clear usage or mission statement attached. It represents a data grab by the government and its opening up of private market driven ways to monetize such data. Refugees who register with TRIS MyRC do not receive any privacy guarantee for their surrendered data. Besides, the fact that TRIS is run by a former member of the police force that has been tainted by extortion and corruption when dealing with refugees (Azis 2014) will neither instill trust nor confidence in the process.

Sensitive biometric refugee data sharing has already posed challenges to refugee privacy and security (Jacobsen 2017). However, refugees are not mere passive victims to such data collection and its use beyond their control. While the bordering practices based on a neoliberal logic and governmentality are meant to control and discipline refugees and specifically refugee bodies, refugees can and do resist. Indeed, new technologies have been deployed by refugees themselves to afford them representation and legibility on their own terms, such as attempts to create a Rohingya blockchain ledger (Prasse-Freeman 2022). Nonetheless, such endeavors remain marginal and are trumped by state sponsored projects that can bring the full force of sovereignty to bear on refugees in the form of immigration raids and detention and even refoulement. Thus, refugees must walk the tightrope between accepting UNHCR and state sponsored projects like TRIS and their agency to resist the collection and instrumentalization of their data. As shown above, refugees make calculated decisions on whether to enter the TRIS registration process. For some, it is of benefit, and they have signed up consciously and willingly. Others omit data collection or obfuscate answers to questions regarding their employers, for example. Such resistance may seem paltry in the face of such all-consuming and ever-present surveillance and control by the state, UNHCR, private companies, like TRIS, and CBOs/NGOs, but it also demonstrates that these institutions are never able to make marginalized and vulnerable populations fully legible (Scott 1998).

Conclusion

The refugee registration regime in Malaysia is a complex, concerted, and confusing diffusion of responsibilities in a political and legal vacuum. We have demonstrated how each party is trying to shift their responsibility onto others to avoid meaningful action and liability for refugees. Malaysia's lack of a formal and clear policy regarding refugees, particularly in registration, is an intentional technique of “governing through inaction” (Beyers and Nicholls 2020). Governance through inaction and active subterfuge and diffusion allows Malaysia to maintain the status quo and reinforce borders simultaneously.

Global refugee governance is increasingly subject to neoliberal regimes of outsourcing and the diffusion of responsibilities. Different actors such as the state, UNHCR, CBOs and NGOs have different roles to play in registering and providing protection to refugees. As neoliberalism increasingly creeps into humanitarian spaces, these actors gradually diffuse their responsibility for refugees by outsourcing it to each other. In the Malaysian case, although the state has registered and issued documentation to some select refugees, the state refuses to take any legal responsibility based on its status as a non-signatory country to the Refugee Convention. This has left the UNHCR to conduct RSD and registration that provides a pathway to refugee resettlement in third countries. The UNHCR has also diffused some of its mandated role by working closely with the CBOs and NGOs. As not all individuals have access to CBOs and NGOs, some are unable to file their asylum claims and receive protection. The situation becomes even more complicated when the profit-oriented private sector gets involved in the refugee registration process.

This article has shown how neoliberal governmentality has been practiced by all actors in the refugee registration schemes. Refugee protection will be greatly undermined if the privately operated TRIS MyRC scheme becomes the way forward for refugee registration. The TRIS registration is primarily a data-driven money-making scheme because it provides no tangible benefits to refugees. Refugees must surrender their data by paying a large fee to a private company, facilitated by the state. The responsibility to register refugees has been outsourced from one party to another in line with the practice of governing from a distance to avoid accountability. This not only maintains the status quo of Malaysian government policy inaction on refugee issues, but also reinforces borders by limiting refugees’ freedom and rights through tighter surveillance through datafication and a form of technocolonialism.