The Thai Ministry of Labour told Channel 3 on March 20 that it has been providing services to register and extend the visas of the migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia since February 5 but only over 600,000 people have registered up to March 19 and over one million people are still left.

The Thai ministry said 24-hour service will be provided to the remaining migrant workers to register and extend their visas starting on March 23 and legal actions will be taken against those that fail to report after March 30.

The 24-hour service is being arranged in order for the remaining migrant workers to register on time but the deadline will be not extended.

The migrant workers only have eight days left to submit their registration and they must complete their registrations before March 31 as stated in the Thai government’s announcement.

The migrant workers need to obtain their personal documents and medical checkup results from respective provinces before March 30 and register in respective registration offices to receive official work permits.

“I don’t think [the registration] can be completed on time. [The registration offices] are crowded. They are working on it but I don’t know whether the process is slow or not. They are working until 2 or 3 am. If 1,500 people come today, they finish the registration for all 1,500 people on the same day,” Ko Myo, who has been assisting Myanmar migrant workers, said concerning the situation of the registration offices in Chiang Mai Province in Thailand.

According to current list, only the personal documents of around 600,000 migrant workers have been received by the ministry and the rest of the migrant workers must submit them before March 30.

“We heard they will stop the registration on the 31st. But I haven’t registered yet. First, there was the CI (Certificate of Identity). When I applied for the CI, there were documents that expired on February 23. So, we have to do it twice. When we heard the news yesterday, we became a little anxious. Some of us will only receive the blood test results on the 28th and some are still doing the blood tests. At first, there were rumors of making an extension,” said Ko Aung Htay, a Myanmar migrant worker.

Employers must extend the visas and register their employees before March 30 and actions will be taken against them starting on March 31 if they fail to register their employees, according to the law that was enacted last year.

Migrant workers without official work permits will be deported after paying a fine between THB 5,000 and 50,000.

Employers who employ workers without work permits will have to pay a fine between THB 10,000 and 100,000 for each illegal worker.

The workers may also face a one-year prison term or pay an additional fine between THB 50,000 and 200,000 for violating the law.

Currently, Myanmar migrant workers have to spend a lot of money to hire brokers to get their permits due to various reasons such as inability to understand the procedure or the Thai language and difficulty in finding an employer.

“The lowest fee for hiring a broker is THB 9,000. Some brokers charge THB 10,000 or 12,000. Normally, the fee is THB 3,700 for the hospital, THB 1,900 for work permit, and THB 500 for immigration. This is the normal fees. The card fee is THB 200. So, the total fee is THB 6,100. Some workers without employers have to hire the employers. Some workers don’t have good employers and they didn’t want to register their employees so they have to hire another employer. The fee for renting an employer is THB 1,000 per year. The brokers are providing this service,” said Ko Aung Htay.

Currently, the registration offices in 76 provinces in Thailand are registering migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. They are registering around 30,000 people per day and the process will be completed within the same day if the workers bring all required documents.