A festering illegal migrant problem is expected to dominate a landmark meeting between Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Kuala Lumpur today.

Yudhoyono chose Malaysia to kick off a traditional round of visits by new leaders to fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - a sign of good relations, officials say - but the migrant issue is sensitive on both sides.

Malaysia has reluctantly extended a conditional amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants after Indonesia said it was ill prepared to handle mass deportations after the Dec 26 tsunami disaster.

But Kuala Lumpur has warned that a threatened crackdown under which illegal workers will be jailed and whipped will go ahead if they do not take the opportunity to go home voluntarily, with the chance of returning legally.

For its part, Jakarta has complained that some Malaysian companies are refusing to pay the illegal workers ahead of their expulsion and has engaged lawyers to take legal action against them - a move which has raised eyebrows in Kuala Lumpur.

"I am surprised that illegal people want to take action against their employers," said Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn said the government itself would take action against employers who fail to pay the salaries of migrant workers.

"We do not want the workers to be denied. They should be paid for work done," he said.

Soft approach

Despite the problems, Home Affairs Minister Azmi Khalid told AFP it was an honour for Malaysia to be on top of the Indonesian president's visit list after his election last October.

"It reflects the closeness of the two neighbours and shows that Malaysia is an important partner," he said, adding that the two leaders would hammer out the issue of illegal migrants.

"Definitely the trans-migration of workers - one of the largest in the world - will be on the agenda," he said.

Azmi said the new "soft" approach of encouraging migrants to leave voluntarily was not working and Indonesia should find ways to prevent its countrymen from entering Malaysia illegally.

Indonesian Manpower Minister Fahmi Idris said a memorandum of understanding on the recruitment of Indonesian workers in Malaysia was expected to be signed during Yudhoyono's visit.

Before the amnesty began on Oct 29 last year, Malaysia estimated there were more than a million illegal workers in the country, mostly from Indonesia but also from the Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

Nearly 400,000, mostly Indonesians, left without facing any penalty during the first three months of the amnesty, but others have remained, clinging to jobs in the construction, plantation and service industries in the face of unemployment at home.

Unscrupulous employers

The issue of illegal workers will "nag the two countries for a long time, as long as there are greedy and corrupt people" in both countries, said National University of Malaysia sociologist Shamsul Amir Baharuddin.

"As long as Malaysian bosses want cheap workers, Indonesian illegals will flood Malaysia. And this is made easy by corrupt (Indonesian) officials who dish out false travel documents for a fee," he told AFP.

Employers, who sometimes prefer illegal workers because they can pay them less than locals, also face arrest and punishment, according to tough laws introduced in 2002.

The New Straits Times newspaper said on Saturday that 24 Malaysian employers currently face mandatory caning for bringing in more than five illegal immigrants each.

"If the courts find them guilty, they will be the first batch of employers to be caned," Ishak Mohamed, immigration department enforcement chief said.

Yudhoyono will be accompanied by eight senior ministers for the two-day visit, which is expected to include discussions on Malaysia's role in the reconstruction of Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province, economic and trade cooperation and how to contain the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.