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“No Home, No Job? No Place for You in Jakarta” was one of the news headlines in this paper last week. The report was about the Jakarta administration’s plan to launch a series of raids against unwelcome, poor newcomers arriving in the city after the Idul Fitri holiday.

Every year the administration, in its bid to rein in population growth in an already overcrowded city, clamps down on the influx of migrants from villages and small towns in Java. Most of them are low-skilled laborers who believe they can find jobs more easily in Jakarta.

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said the raids, known as OYK, would be carried out by public order officers at boarding houses and apartments, havens for newcomers, and would target anyone without the proper paperwork. Fauzi said the administration had set a Sept. 21 deadline for newcomers to register with their local population office for residency documents. Those who failed to do this, he said, would be sent back home.

In addition to ID cards, newcomers must also show their travel documents and letters of assurance from their would-be employers indicating they already have jobs in the capital. To many human rights activists, this is absurd. Travel documents and letters of job assurance are commonly required for those who want to go abroad, but not for local migrants seeking jobs in their own country. No democratic government can prohibit or restrict the movement of citizens who want to work and earn an honest living, regardless of the kind of work they are seeking.

In a TV interview, Wardah Hafidz, a champion of the country’s urban poor, said, “Jakarta residents still need the poor. Who is willing to collect the tons of garbage disposed of daily by well-to-do households?” Wardah is right because she realizes every task is worth performing so long as it benefits the public. Hence, the Jakarta administration should not treat the migrants as if they were vagrants. While migrant workers are critical to the informal sector and help support business, vagrants beg and sometimes resort to crime in order to survive.

With crime rates on the rise and the threats of terrorism always lurking in the background, Fauzi had a point when he said it was the city’s duty to monitor the movement of migrants and keep tabs on their whereabouts as part of efforts to ensure security and order. We can only hope that the raids on newcomers are carried out humanely and that anyone who is detained is spared from having to appear in a petty crimes court.

Some 500 public order officers will be clamping down on newcomers in all five of Jakarta’s municipalities, according to Purba Hutapea, the head of the provincial population office. When asked whether such raids were effective in discouraging migrants from flowing into the city, Purba said data from his office show a decrease in the number of newcomers over the past few years, from more than 100,000 in 2008 to around 69,500 in 2009. This year, the number of migrants is expected to be around 50,000.

The OYK raids, demographers believe, are not the only reason the number of migrants has decreased. Developing areas near the capital, such as Tangerang, Depok and Bogor, have become more attractive destinations for migrant workers. In recent years the three areas, especially Serpong in Tangerang, have become full-blown satellite cities with growing business districts, industrial estates and academic centers capable of absorbing large numbers of both skilled and unskilled workers.

These areas do not engage in OYK-style raids. Officials in the areas have agreed that it would be unwise to conduct such raids and return migrants to their home villages, where jobs are hard to find.

Urbanization is a natural result of the development of human civilization. The global flow of people from rural to urban areas is increasing from day by day, according to data from a 2002 United Nations Population Division report. Jakarta’s population, which in 2001 stood at 11.4 million, was projected to reach 17.3 million by 2015.

Only a more equitable development policy by the central government that creates more jobs in rural areas can stop marginalized villagers from migrating to urban areas. Most of these villagers, especially from Java, would probably prefer not to have to pull up stakes and head to boisterous, crowded and heavily polluted cities. They know all too well that “east or west, home is the best.” The government just needs to create the conditions that will let them stay there.

Oei Eng Goan, a former literature lecturer at National University (UNAS) in Jakarta, is a freelance journalist.