Immigration News: July, 2005 - Volume 12

Southeast Asia

Thailand. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra promised on May 1, 2005 that the government would better regulate the 1.3 million migrants from neighboring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia who registered in 2004. The migrants must re-register in June 2005 to remain in Thailand an additional year, and to do so they need a Thai employer. The government said that no new migrants would be admitted in 2005, and that unauthorized migrants face fines of up to 60,000 baht ($1,500) and three years in prison.

NGOs have begun helping migrants to sue Thai employers who do not pay the required minimum wage, 175 baht a day in Bangkok and 139 baht in Mae Sot in 2005. In Mae Sot in Tak Province, many of the 100,000 Burmese migrants are employed in garment factories that do not pay the 139 baht a day minimum wage. In June 2005, the MAP Foundation sued a Thai garment maker as well as the local labor office, which rejected the migrants' charge that they were underpaid even though Thai labor laws say all workers are entitled to the minimum wage.

The Burmese migrants are vulnerable because they have so few options at home. About two percent of Burmese are migrants in Thailand, and there are few prospects for an economic turnaround at home.

Malaysia. The government's latest efforts to crack down on illegal foreign workers failed. Some 380,000 unauthorized foreigners left or were expelled between October 2004 and February 2005. However, in response to labor shortage complaints from plantations (claiming a shortage of 300,000 workers), construction (200,000 workers short) and services, the government in May 2005 resumed the practice of allowing foreigners who enter Malaysia on tourist visas to work if they find a job. In July 2005, the government announced that the 60,000 refugees in the country would be allowed to work.

The government also said it would raise the tax paid by plantations and service firms that hire foreign workers by 50 to 100 percent, saying "we do not want these sectors to resort to employing foreign workers as an easy way to solving their woes ... they must give opportunities to local workers." However, maids are to be protected by restricting the fees that recruiters can charge to M$2,500, half of the usual current M$5,000 ($1,320) fee. Employers will also be able to name the foreign workers they want.

Illegal foreigners were supposed to leave and return after they were registered with their governments. However, Malaysia said that the Indonesian registration centers did not work as expected, and so it fast-tracked recruitment in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and Vietnam. There is also to be a crackdown on abusive employers- an Indian died of yellow fever after being locked up along with some 400 other Indian workers in a hostel for two weeks by an employer in southern Johor state.

There are about 1.5 million legal foreign workers in Malaysia, mostly Indonesians, and another million unauthorized foreigners, making foreigners about a quarter of the total labor force of 10.5 million.

Vietnam. The Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1987 allowed those born in Vietnam to American service members to come to the United States with their families; 26,000 arrived. There are some 1.2 million Vietnamese-origin US residents, and their median age is 30.

Philippines. Some 933,588 overseas Filipino workers were deployed in 2004, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), which said the stock of Filipinos abroad, including naturalized citizens of Canada and the US, was eight million. Remittances were $8.5 billion in 2004.

The June 7, 2005 Migrant Workers Day celebration had the theme, Migranteng Pilipino: Buong Bansa, Buong Mundo, Saludo sa Inyo (The Nation and the World Salute You, the Migrant Filipino Workers!).

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's family in May 2005 was accused of corruption for accepting gambling proceeds from jueteng, a popular but illegal game that led to the ouster of her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, in 2001; she faces impeachment in the Filipino Congress.

The economy is floundering, and in one poll, a quarter of respondents said their best hope for improvement was to find an overseas job. A third of Filipinos live in poverty, and the country has among the most inequality in southeast Asia.