Child residence and nationality

I don't have an answer for you, but it's very important that she gets this worked out. I have a close friend of mine (an American), married to a Malaysian and they got married in Malaysia. They moved to the US and she had a daughter, they decided to move back to Malaysia a couple of months ago.

The daughter is now 23 and they didn't register the birth, but another friend of mine told me that it doesn't matter since the daughter was born outside Malaysia and the father wasn't Malaysian.

Now the situation is that she was able to get her husband a spousal visa for six months and can renew it once a year after that. But the daughter has NO status here in Malaysia. I'm about to do a visa run with them to buy them a few more months to figure out a solution. They're trying to get the daughter registered into graduate school here in Malaysia, but the procedure requires her to leave Malaysia until the student visa is processed (6-8 weeks) and have a physical done in her home country (US). Not really a feasible solution, they've contacted an attorney that has offered a letter saying that she's working with immigration if she has trouble with the visa run. But so far, short of her marrying a Malaysian has anyone come up with a solution to her working toward a PR in Malaysia.

Good luck.

OK thank you for this first answer
What I'm sure of is that our daughter can get my nationality (foreign passport). But what worries me is she will only be able to stay as long as I stay in Malaysia (i.e. through my work permit under dependent status)

How can we ensure that she stays in Malaysia as a permanent resident?

Step one, register the birth and if possible your marriage first. If you can't register the marriage then your daughter will probably have binti Abduallah listed as the father.