Rohaidah appears sad and down. The 35-year-old could only view from afar the ripples in the port of Singapore's World Trade Center, the gateway to the city-state from the Indonesian island of Batam. She had hoped to see them from much closer.

"I have never been rejected. Well, today I was not allowed in," she said, amazed.

She was going to meet a member of her family there. But worse still, her passport was stamped with the letter