PUTRAJAYA: The problem of illegal immigrants and legal foreign workers in the country is "worrying" and unexpected, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.

He said yesterday some 1.3 million illegal immigrants were registered under the first phase of the Home Ministry's "6P" legalisation and amnesty exercise, which began on Aug 1.

The sum sees a little more than half of the two million illegal immigrants believed to be in the country.

Illegal immigrants from Indonesia made up the majority with 640,609, followed by Bangladeshis (267,803), Myanmars (144,098), Nepalese (33,437) and others (183,422).

Hishammuddin also revealed that a little over a million legal foreign workers had registered under a similar exercise that kicked off on July 13.

"There could even be a lot more illegal immigrants that have yet to be accounted for," he said, adding that the total of 2.3 million did not include maids, refugees and legal as well as illegal immigrants in Sabah and Sarawak.

Hishammuddin said this after chairing a meeting with state Immigration directors here.

Present were Immigration Director-General Datuk Ahmad Alias and deputy Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Alwi Ibrahim.

He said 22 per cent of the illegal immigrants had registered at Immigration offices, while the remaining 78 per cent did so with appointed companies.

Hishammuddin said illegal immigrants would not be allowed to register any more because the deadline had passed.

"I would discuss the deadline for the registration of legal foreign workers during the meeting of the cabinet committee on foreign and illegal workers next week."

He would also discuss the second phase of the programme and the legalisation process at the meeting, which will be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Apart from registration and legalisation, 6P comprises amnesty, supervision, enforcement and deportation. The results of the first phase of the programme, Hishammuddin said, would be tabled to the cabinet.

When asked if similar large-scale exercises would be conducted in future, Hishammuddin said it would depend very much on the result of the entire programme.