Thai police and immigration officials checked more than 80,000 workers from Myanmar during the first 36 days of their 120-day crackdown on undocumented migrant workers and more than 470 of them face fines and or deportation for not having proper documents, the Thai Ministry of Labor said.
The ministry’s Foreign Workers Administration office said 108,875 foreign workers in Thailand were checked by police and immigration officials during the 36 days. Almost 80 percent of them were Myanmar nationals.
The inspections were carried out at several sites where the prevalence of migrant workers is high, including retail shops in Bangkok’s central district of Hui Khwang, factories on the city’s periphery, coconut processing plants in the province of Ratchaburi, which borders Myanmar, restaurants in Udon Thani, a province in the northeast near Laos, and at construction sites in the eastern province of Chachoengsao, which attracts migrant workers from Cambodia.
Besides workers from Myanmar, inspection teams also checked 16,507 Cambodians, 7,804 Laotians, 104 Vietnamese and 3,547 workers from other countries, the Foreign Workers Administration office said.
Thai authorities said that slightly more than 700 migrants face deportation – 473 from Myanmar, 101 from Laos, 74 from Cambodia, 14 from Vietnam, and 64 from other countries – because they did not have proper documents.
Under Thai law, foreign nationals working in the country without proper documents or work permits face fines of 5,000 to 50,000 Thai baht (US$ 140 to $1,400), a two-year ban on working in Thailand and deportation. The same penalties apply if they are working in unauthorized jobs.
Employers also face penalties. If found guilty of employing undocumented foreign workers, they face fines of 10,000 to 100,000 baht per worker. Employers who repeatedly violate the law face up to one year in prison and fines ranging from 50,000 to 200,000 baht. They can also be banned from hiring migrant workers for three years.
The number of Myanmar nationals entering Thailand illegally began surging in the second week of February, as did the number of them being arrested by Thai police, said Ko Min Oo of the Foundation for Education and Development, an organization for migrant workers in Thailand.
The number of people entering Thailand from Myanmar surged when the junta activated the People’s Military Service Law on February 10. It immediately made most men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 eligible for military conscription and triggered the exodus to Thailand.
In May, the junta stopped issuing permits for men to work abroad to prevent them from fleeing the country to avoid being recruited into the military.
