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legislator who had praised the immigration bill had to swallow her words shortly after a housewife told her that two vital points in the bill, which she had described as major progress, had been secretly omitted by unknown parties.

In a letter to Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar, Eva Kusuma Sundari protested the omission of two key issues on expatriates and transnational marriages in the bill, which is scheduled to be passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday.

“To be honest, I didn’t know the problem during the hearing with the minister. Only when a woman later told me did I learn that the spirit of the bill had been drastically reduced,” the legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) acknowledged to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

It is not clear who was responsible for removing parts of two clauses, but this is not the first time that the House has experience such an omission. A few clauses in the law on tobacco control were found to be inexplicably missing once the controversial law went into effect. Until now the matter remains shrouded in mystery.

In Eva’s letter to the minister, she pointed out that the House’s Consultative Body and Formulating Team had agreed to the wording of Chapter 54 ruling that the state grants temporary resident status to families of transnational marriages. It meant children and their foreign parent would automatically get temporary residency. The House’s Working Committee covers the Consultative Body and the Formulating Team. Last week’s meeting with the minister was the final step before its deliberation this Thursday.

“But in the final formulation that was used as the basis for our working meeting on March 31, Article 54b had been changed to become ‘foreigners who are legally married to Indonesian citizens’,” Eva wrote in her protest to the minister.

The House team had also agreed to the wording of Chapter 62 stating that families from transnational marriages and expatriates married to Indonesians for 10 years would get permanent residence even if the couple divorced after 10 years of marriage.

“In the final formulation of the working meeting [between the House and the minister], the part concerning ‘10 years or more’ had disappeared,” Eva told the minister in her letter.

“The minister and the special and working committee leadership are responsible for the missing parts and if they are not returned our faction will not endorse the bill,” she told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Eva said the working committee and the minister agreed to use “families from transnational marriages” but the wording was later replaced with “expatriates marrying Indonesian citizens”.

“With the approved phrase, the government and the working committee wanted to facilitate all children from transnational marriages who did not ask for dual or Indonesian citizenship when Law No. 12/2006 on Citizenship took effect,  to get a permanent stay permit,” she noted.

However, she said if the changed phrase was maintained, children without Indonesian citizenship when the 2006 Citizenship Law was enforced no longer had a chance to get a permanent stay permit in Indonesia.

The bill stipulates that expatriates, including workers, missionaries, investors and families from transnational marriages have a right to a permanent stay permit from the Indonesian government after working or being married to an Indonesian citizen for 10 consecutive years.