Bangkok (Mizzima) – The Thai Cabinet has issued a new order to deal with illegal immigrant workers, including reopening registration for workers who failed to meet the February deadline, The Nation newspaper reported on Wednesday.
After the Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister’s office announced that under the 1979 immigration Act, immigrant workers are allowed to register and to stay not more than one year in Thailand.
In accordance with the new guidelines, immigrant workers are allowed to bring in children under 15 who can stay in Thailand for one year with a permit, the newspaper said.
Section 17 of the 1979 immigration Act says those due for repatriation are allowed to stay or work temporarily in Thailand on a case-by-case basis.
In accordance with the directive, temporary stay permits will be issued to immigrant workers and their children. After a medical check-up, they can apply for a work permit.
The life of a work permit will be one year and the immigrant worker must pay for medical check-ups, health insurance and a work permit certificate. A workers’ support group said that processing will start soon.
‘The Thai Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour needs time to prepare the process. Meanwhile, immigrant workers should prepare the required documents for the children. And they need to urge their bosses to register them’, a spokesperson of the Migrant Workers Group (MWG) told Mizzima.
The estimated cost for medical check-ups, health insurance and a temporary work permit is about 3,800 baht (US $126).
After the new registration period, Thailand will try to prevent illegal workers from entering Thailand and after the registration period, immigrant workers who have not registered and employers who hire them will be arrested and heavily fined.
The spokesperson for MWG said that at this time it was not known if children would be covered under a health plan.
Meanwhile, the Alien Workers Management Committee will form ‘province level’ committees under the Ministry of Labour to speed up the processing.
During the registration period for workers which started in August 2009, about 1.3 million migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia registered. But in 2011, after the February deadline, just 845,139 workers renewed their registration, according to the Ministry of Labour.
There are a total of 550,003 migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia who hold temporary passports. A total of 352,748 are from Burma.
Workers support groups estimate that there are about two million Burmese migrant workers, both legal and illegal, in Thailand.
