The latest MyIMMs disruption was not a minor glitch. Reports stated that most of Malaysia’s 114 immigration checkpoints were affected, including the Johor Causeway and Second Link. The real issue is that a critical national immigration system failed again, forcing manual processing and leaving thousands of travellers caught in massive queues nationwide.
Worse, this was the second major MyIMMs crash in just over a month, following the 23 April disruption that also left thousands of travellers stranded for about two hours. Once is a warning. Twice in weeks is negligence!
The Immigration director-general reportedly said MyIMMs is already 30 years old, that problems are bound to happen, and that such disruptions may recur until NIISe is ready. That answer is unacceptable. The government has known for years that MyIMMs is obsolete. NIISe was launched in 2021 to replace it and was then expected to be fully operational by 2024. Yet in 2026, Malaysia is still relying on an ageing system that can paralyse border operations for hours.
After years of billion-ringgit procurement, termination, re-procurement and cost revision, apologies are no longer enough.
The Home Minister must immediately disclose the root cause of the 28 May outage, the actual number of travellers and entry points affected, the present status and completion deadline for NIISe, and the concrete measures being taken to prevent another nationwide disruption before NIISe is completed.
Malaysia cannot run 21st-century borders with a 30-year-old system and 30-year-old excuses.