“they entered Malaysia on February 28th using their legit Iranian passports..they could have continued flying to their destinations using their legit passports,”
No, they couldn’t. People, especially Americans, are ignorant to the facts - since we are privileged to have U.S. passports and therefore readily accepted into most countries.
An Iranian with an Iranian passport, is very limited to where they can go. There’s a very small handful of countries that don’t require a visa or will grant one without much information ....Malaysia is one of them. Any EU country, has rigid requirements for all Iranians, especially if you don’t have much of a travel history. Even with that, it can take 3 to 6 months to find out if you get a visa.
Once in Malaysia, they needed passports that would allow them to enter an EU country without a visa.
Why did the asylum seekers fly to China?