Thailand starts issuing travel doc cards to Myanmar migrants

Bangkok (dpa) – Thailand opened 11 one-stop service centres nationwide on Friday to speed up the registration of an estimated one million undocumented Myanmar migrant workers in the country.

The offices, manned by both Thai and Myanmar immigration officers, are to verify the nationalities of undocumented migrant workers in the country and eventually issue them with temporary travel documents, work permits and visas.

Thailand initially set a December 14 deadline for all Myanmar, Cambodian and Lao migrants to register and obtain proper documentation for working legally.

Although 1.3 million Myanmar nationals met the registration deadline, more than one million failed to do so, according to Tin Win, Myanmar’s ambassador to Thailand. The Thai cabinet agreed to extend the deadline to March 16, and to help the process by setting up one-stop registration centres in 11 provinces nationwide.

Since the centres can process only about 1,000 migrants daily, Myanmar authorities have asked Thailand to extend the registration deadline to a more realistic date, Myanmar Deputy Labour Minister Myint Thein said after visiting Thailand last week.