The new Malaysian government has been cracking down on foreign workers who are in the country illegally, with heavy fines being imposed on those who overstay their visas.



Since the Malaysian government ended an amnesty program on Aug. 30, one of the shelters for troubled citizens managed by the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur has sheltered 177 people, up from the previous average of 80 to 90 people.



“This is because we cannot repatriate people like we used to,” the embassy’s first secretary on consular affairs, Yulisdiyah Kartika Nuswapadi, said on Thursday. “Usually, we repatriate people once a week, but now every undocumented worker must pay fines of up to 3,000 ringgit [US$714.6] or they get arrested.”



She said that while some of the people in the shelter could pay the fines many could not.



One of the less fortunate workers, Siti Aminah, 46, sa...