KUALA LUMPUR: The proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution involving the issue of citizenship takes into account several factors, including not automatically granting citizenship to foreigners residing in the country, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

He said that based on the existing provisions in the constitution, children born to permanent residents in the country are eligible for citizenship if both their parents are permanent residents.

Saifuddin Nasution said the matter was decided by the government in 1963 as a basis to manage the applications of Singaporeans to enter Malaysia following the separation of the two countries.

"When the two countries (Malaysia and Singapore) separated, a policy was made for Singaporeans staying in the peninsula to hold a red identity card.

"Hence, for such a situation, a provision was made in the Constitution that when a man and a woman, both holders of red identity cards, get married and have children here (in Malaysia) then the child will get a blue ID card (citizen status), but technically, the red ID card holders are still foreign nationals," he said during the question and answers session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

He was responding to a supplementary question from Kalam Salan (PN-Sabak Bernam) regarding constraints faced by the Home Ministry in solving citizenship problems involving temporary and permanent residents in the country.

Saifuddin Nasution said in the proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution, the government proposed that children born in the country to married couples, both with permanent resident status, no longer continue to be granted Malaysian citizenship and need to apply for citizenship.

"This is because when we (Malaysians) are abroad, for example, for Malaysian citizens who are permanent residents in Australia and they give birth to children there, Australia does not grant automatic citizenship to the child," he said.

-- BERNAMA