On 19 August 2010, the Thailand Immigration Bureau announced a new guideline on Standards in Immigration Detention Centres. This guideline sets out the procedures which immigration officials must follow regarding the treatment of detainees, detainees’ rights, and deportation orders.

The full version of this guideline is available only in Thai [click].

However, key points from the guideline have been translated into English and published in the report “No Choice in the Matter: Migrants’ experiences of arrest,  detention and deportation” [click] This report, based on 200 interviews with migrant workers, indicates, at best, arbitrary implementation of the requirements set out in the guideline. More work must be done in order to bring practices regarding immigration detention in line with the necessary standards provided in the guideline.