Burmese migrant workers are loaded onto a police van near Mae Sot on 16 May 2017. (PHOTO: DVB)

More than 300 migrant workers from Burma have been arrested in five days since Thai authorities launched a crackdown in Mae Sot, a Thai border town where thousands of Burmese work, mostly in factories, construction or the agricultural sector.

“The Thai police have not only cracked down on factories in downtown Mae Sot, but also at smaller factories and workers’ residences on the outskirts of town,” said Moe Gyo, the chair of the Joint Action Committee for Burmese Affairs.

Speaking to DVB earlier today, Moe Gyo said, “The crackdown started on 14 May and is ongoing. Today, the police busted places in villages along the Moei River [Thai-Burmese border]. Police inspected farms, crafts workshops and small businesses, mostly focusing on workplaces that are not officially registered. Of course, if the workplace is not registered, neither are the workers.

“I heard that about 50 illegal migrant workers were arrested this morning, and I estimate more than 300 in the four days prior.”

He said that those Burmese workers caught without the correct paperwork are usually detained in jail before being deported.

“I’m not sure why the Thai police decided to start busting migrant workers this week,” he continued. “On 13 May, Aung Ko Than, the labour attaché at the Myanmar Embassy, and I submitted a complaint to the Thai police for fining the so-called ‘illegal’ workers 3,000 to 5,000 baht [US$100- $160]. Even for those who are missing just one paper.”

Moe Gyo added: “The police did not take any action against the employers.”

He said that of the approximately 250,000 Burmese migrant workers in Mae Sot, only about 80,000 have officially registered at a Thai labour office.

By: NANG MYA NADI, DVB

Published on: 18 May 2017

Police round up 35 Myanmar citizens in Tha Sala district of Nakhon Si Thammarat on Friday and take them to the police station. (Photo by Nujaree Raekrun)

NAKHON SI THAMMARAT, SOUTHERN THAILAND –Police on Friday arrested 35 Myanmar nationals left near a deserted shrimp farm by job recruiters who promised to return and take them to Malaysia.

Police in Tha Sala district rounded up 28 men and seven women from Myanmar after being alerted by villagers. They were taken to the police station for questioning. Their mobile phones and IDs were also seized.

Villagers told Pol Col Cherdchai Chotsut, Tha Sala police chief, they saw two vehicles drop off their passengers at an empty farm outside the village and then speed off.

One of the Myanmar men who could speak Thai told police they crossed the border from Myanmar to Ranong. Waiting vehicles picked them up for the journey to the southern border, where they were to cross into Malaysia and get jobs.

Their families in Myanmar would pay the gang after they confirmed they had arrived in Malaysia, he added.

However, a scout travelling ahead had warned the drivers of a police checkpoint on the way. They decided to drop the passengers at the farm, with a promise to return later and take them to the southern border, he said.

Pol Col Chaosilp Boonpradit, deputy chief of Nakhon Si Thammarat police, said all were charged with illegal entry. Police will expand the investigation with the aim of arresting the traffickers.

By: Nujaree Raekrun, Bangkok Post

Published on: 5 May 2017

A sweep of illegal workers in Chiang Mai province has uncovered over 100 illegal foreign laborers.

Chiang Mai Employment Officer Yaowapha Piboolpol led a contingent of border police and provincial administrators on a probe of foreign laborers in work sites and markets throughout Chiang Mai, finding more than 10 employers violating foreign employment laws and over 95 migrant workers without the proper documentation. Authorities filed charges against all those found and have begun punitive measures against the employers.

Many of the illegal workers uncovered had expired documentation or were working beyond the conditions of their contract while some of the employers brought in were due to hiring workers not registered to their businesses.

The sweep was prompted by a Department of a Employment policy to regulate foreign workers across the nation with an emphasis on ensuring workers from other countries are not encroaching upon the employment of Thai people. In Chiang Mai, authorities took care to make sure no foreign workers were acting as tour guides, as the profession is reserved for Thai nationals.

By: National News Bureau of Thailand

Published on: 6 October 2016

Ranong authorities arrested 24 illegal migrant workers from Myanmar over the weekend in La-un district.

Ranong Governor Jatupot Piyumputra revealed at a press conference that 24 migrants were arrested on Saturday night after entering Thailand illegally. He was joined by military officials from the 25th Infantry Regiment and others from the Provincial Immigration Bureau of Ranong.

Among those arrested, 17 of them were males, including one boy, and the rest were females. Two other Myanmar nationals also captured by authorities are believed to be the traffickers.

According to the authorities, these illegal migrants were on their way to their employers in Phuket, Chumphon, Samut Sakhon, Bangkok and Malaysia. They will be charged with illegal entry after failing to present traveling and other related documents to the authorities.

The governor said they would be treated according to human right principles. The migrants were given food and water before having to go through legal procedures.

By: National News Bureau of Thailand

Published on: 3 October 2016

Border patrol police and administrative officials early Saturday morning rounded up seven undocumented Myanmar migrants at a para-rubber plantation in Songkhla’s Sadao district.

Cambodian workers repatriated from Banteay Meanchey province ‘s Poipet border checkpoint, Sept. 2016. Photo provided to RFA

Thai authorities are making good on their promise to crack down on illegal immigrants as each day they are sending thousands of migrant workers back to Cambodia and Vietnam, RFA has learned.

Sim Namm Yung, a provincial official in Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province, told RFA on Thursday that Thailand deported more than 4,000 Cambodian workers back to their homeland in August alone.

At least 300 Cambodians are being sent back home each day, Sim Namm Yung told RFA.

“They are from different parts of Cambodia,” she said. “Some went to Thailand by themselves to look for a job, but some were illegally cheated by the brokers.”

While Sim Namm Yung said most of the Cambodians worked in construction and resided in Thailand from three months to a year, some of them were also recently released from jail.

“Most of those who were in jail and were sent back home mostly to the Sras Keo province (Sakaeo in Thai),” she said.

Sum Chankea, an official with the Cambodian human rights organization ADHOC, told RFA that the repatriated Cambodians were packed “like pigs” into vans with metal bars over the windows.

After arriving at the Poipet International Checkpoint in Banteay Meanchey province the Cambodian authorities “educate” them about the illegal immigration for about 15 to 20 minutes, before allowing them to return to their home villages.

“Cambodian authorities in charge of workers along the border seem to pay no attention to the problem,” Sum Chankea said. “The authorities also are not making any attempts to arrest and punished the brokers who have taken workers to Thailand illegally.”

Human traffickers charge Cambodians as much as U.S. $100 per person to illegally transport them across the border in the northwestern part of the country, human rights groups told RFA in April.

Workers, who do not have passports, pay 300,000 to 400,000 riel (U.S. $75 to U.S. $100) each to help them cross over the border in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang provinces, Sum Chankea told RFA at the time.

“Workers have traveled to Thailand like ants,” Sum Chankea said in April.

Vietnamese are also sent home

Cambodia is not the only country that is suddenly seeing an influx in repatriations as the Thai government is also sending people back to Vietnam.

Most of the Vietnamese appear to be street vendors who set up business in Thailand under a memorandum of understanding reached in 2015 allowing Vietnamese to work in Thailand.

While the MOU allows Vietnamese to work in Thailand, it restricts their employment to serving as manual laborers or service providers.

A vendor in Rangsit district in Thailand’s Pathum Thani province told RFA the government’s crackdown has convinced him to go back to Vietnam

“I have been here for five or six or years, and I know that I could be jailed anytime,” he said. “So, I am thinking about going back home. I told my fellow vendors in Rangsit that we should not go out too much because we might get picked up.”

Thailand’s immigration problem spans decades if not centuries as the country is an important destination for migrant workers and asylum seekers from across the Greater Mekong Delta region as well other parts of Asia.

Speaking via video conference on Sept. 9, Thai immigration chief Nathathorn Phrosunthorn announced a nationwide crackdown designed to flush out foreigners, Thaivisa.com reported.

The job debate

According to the report, he singled out immigrants who are taking Thai jobs in the restaurant business and selling wares on the move.

The country has been criticized for its treatment of migrant workers who are often at the mercy of unscrupulous employers and labor brokers.

“Thailand is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking,” the U.S. State Department wrote in its 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report.

While migrant workers are at risk, they are still drawn to the country as Thailand is a wealthy nation compared to its neighbors.

Thailand’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, creating millions of jobs that helped pull millions of people out of poverty, according to the World Bank.

That growth has slowed in recent years, with the World Bank reporting a modest 2.8 percent increase in 2015 after a sluggish 0.9 percent in 2014. The outlook for 2016 is for 2.5 percent growth.

According to the Office of the Social and Economic Development Board, workers from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China and ethnic minorities from Southeast Asian countries, have cut into businesses reserved for Thais.

‘Search and arrest’

“The way to solve these problems is search and arrest,” Arak Prommanee, director-general of the Department of Employment, told BenarNews. “Vendor and retail selling jobs are reserved for Thais.”

The junta that took power in 2014 from a civilian government widely perceived as being corrupt, issued a pair of executive orders to “clean up” the illegal migrant workers in the capital and nationwide in 2015 and 2016, he said.

Arak described three types of offenders: illegal migrants, documented workers who have jobs for which they are not approved and immigrants who overstay their visas.

But employment issues aren’t the only reason the Thais are deporting immigrant workers, Arak said.

“We started tackling the issue when we learnt from news reports that there are illegal workers selling products, which are fake or are contaminated,” Arak told BenarNews.

In May, Police in Muak Lek district of Sara Buri that lies about 100 miles north of Bangkok arrested a Vietnamese couple for selling artificial orange juice mixed with dirty water after a photo and story about them was shared on social media and reported in the local newspapers.

“This group of workers came here to sell all sorts of snacks like meat balls, fruit juices and pickled fruits,” he said. “That made us aware of how we need to ensure hygiene and food safety for consumers.”

By: Radio Free Asia

Published on: 16 September 2016

VIENTIANE – Champassak officials have revealed that over 500 foreign labourers have been working illegally on construction sites and as traders and venders in the province and trying to avoid the authorities.

Immigration official cracking down on illegal immigrants arrested 191 people working at a construction site belonging to Sino Great Wall in the Tonle Bassac district yesterday. KY/Mai Vireak

Immigration Police extended their visa raids yesterday to a construction site in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Morn district where 191 foreigners were found without work permits, passports or proper documentation, an official said.
In April 2014, the Interior Ministry and Labor Ministry formed a joint-inspection committee to keep an eye on companies employing foreigners and to take a more active role in enforcing the 1997 Labor Law as well as the Immigration Law.
These laws require all migrant workers in the Kingdom to hold a work permit along with the appropriate business visa. If found to be employed without a permit, they will have to pay $100 to apply for one and be handed a fine of $125.
“The arrests were carried out to check for proper documents during a raid on a construction site,” Major General Uk Heisela, chief investigator at the Interior Ministry’s immigration department, told Khmer Times about the raid at a site operated by Sino Great Wall.
“After questioning, we found that 170 of the 190 Chinese nationals have business visas in their passports, but they don’t have work permits from the Labor Ministry, and the other 20 don’t have passports or proper documentation to stay or work in the Kingdom,” he said.
“The 170 people will be fined for lacking work permits and for the 20 Chinese along with one Vietnamese who don’t have passports, they will be deported and permanently barred from returning to Cambodia.”
In a separate raid at a construction site last week, the capital’s Immigration Police fined 167 Chinese nationals for lacking work permits and three Vietnamese nationals were held for deportation for not having passports to stay or work in Cambodia.
In the first half of this year, the immigration department fined 622 foreigners from 37 countries for not having work permits.
In all, violators have paid approximately $77,750 in fines while more than 36,000 foreign workers have applied for work permits at the Labor Ministry after a January-to-March period was set up by the government to start the application process.

By: Ros Chanveasna, Khmer Times

Published on: 17 August 2016

Photo by: Eakkapop Thongtub

Immigration officials yesterday (June 29) arrested 12 migrant workers for living in Thailand illegally following a raid on a workers camp on Trang Rd in Phuket Town.

The raid came following complaints from local residents about problems with rubbish being dumped in and around the area close to the camp.

Chief of Phuket Internal Security Operation Command Capt Sathaporn Wajarat led a group of officials from various government departments to carry out the road at 6:15pm yesterday at the camp which is located just metres away from Phuket Provincial Hall.

Capt Sathaporn said, “We were told that about 100 workers were living at the camp, but when we carried out the raid a number of them had not returned back from work. Those that were there were checked for work permits and identification cards.

“We found 12 migrant workers who had no work permit so they were taken to the Immigration Police,” he said.

Capt Sathaporn went on to explain that the raid came after local residents filed a number complaints at the Darongdhama Centre stating that there was a lot of rubbish being dumped around the camps site and that the rubbish was causing a bad stench and an increase in the number of mosquitoes.

“We discovered that there are too many people living in this tiny area. The ground is always damp due to the time of year and rubbish has been dumped all across the area. The toilets were also unhygienic.” he said.

“The camp’s caretaker told us the workers had been living at the camp since September last year and most worked on construction being carried out at local schools.

“Municipality officials have advised the caretaker to ensure the area is kept clean and that the owner of the land must ensure that the entire areas is hygienic,” Capt Sathaporn concluded.

By: Phuket News

Published on: 30 June 2016

More than 70 undocumented migrant workers were deported to Cambodia from Thailand on Tuesday afternoon, according to provincial authorities in Battambang.
The report said 73 Cambodian nationals, including 15 women, were returned via the Doung border checkpoint in the province.
“Thai authorities deported those Cambodian workers for working without proper documents,” a police officer who requested anonymity told Khmer Times, adding that the workers had been arrested at different worksites.
The official also said the workers had been living in poor conditions after having been lured to Thailand by brokers promising high wages.
On average about 50 to 100 undocumented Cambodian workers are deported from Thailand every day, said Chum Sounry, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Thai authorities detain and deport any foreign worker who does not have a work permit.
“It has become commonplace already, this deporting of Cambodian workers to Cambodia by Thai officials,” Mr. Sounry said, adding that Thai authorities always work closely with their Cambodian counterparts over deportations.
“With every deportation of Cambodians, Thai authorities always inform the Cambodian consulate in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province to help with the processing and deportation to the Kingdom,” Mr. Sounry said.

By: Khmer Times

Published on: 16 June 2016