Southeast Asia’s most visited country vows no more immigration system failure after Singapore checkpoint incident
Tourists and Hindu devotees are seen on the 272 steps of Sri Subramaniar Swamy Temple at Batu Caves, Malaysia, April 19, 2024. Photo by Reuters
Malaysian authorities have pledged to prevent a recurrence of a large-scale immigration system breakdown that had caused hours-long delays for thousands of travelers at Johor’s land checkpoints with Singapore.
The disruption at the Causeway and Second Link from Jan. 10 to 12 had exposed coordination shortcomings in Malaysia’s three-decade-old immigration system, The Straits Times reported.
Malaysia Border Control and Protection Agency (AKPS) director-general Mohd Shuhaily Mohd Zain said on Jan. 12 that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had instructed the agency to ensure the autogate malfunction does not recur, particularly during the Visit Malaysia tourism campaign.
Malaysia expects to attract 47 million tourists this year after a successful year.
The country surpassed Thailand for the second consecutive year to become the most visited country in Southeast Asia in 2025 thanks to its flexible visa policy and infrastructure improvements.
Malaysia welcomed 38.3 million foreign arrivals in the first 11 months of 2025, exceeding the total recorded for the whole of 2024, according to Tourism Malaysia under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.
Malaysia’s autogates, part of the unmanned automated immigration entry and exit system, require only a passport scan for clearance, Malay Mail reported.
The malfunction affected only foreign passport holders at the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex in Johor Bahru and the Sultan Abu Bakar Complex at the Second Link, resulting in long queues in both departure and arrival halls.
The checkpoints are equipped with 39 autogates for entry and 29 for exit at the Bangunan Sultan, while the Sultan Abu Bakar Complex has 12 autogates. Together, they handle more than 300,000 travelers each day.
Immigration system outages in Malaysia are not unprecedented.
In July, a malfunction affecting all 200 autogate systems nationwide caused long queues at Johor’s checkpoints and Kuala Lumpur’s two international airports, impacting only foreign passport holders.
Johor Menteri Besar Onn Hafiz Ghazi described the incident as an “embarrassment to the country.”
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