Section 17 : In certain special cases, the Minister, with Cabinet approval, may permit any alien or any group of aliens to stay in the Kingdom under certain conditions, or may make conditions, or may consider exemption from conforming with this Act.

However, the term mentioned in Section 17, `In certain special cases' can be understood as only applicable in regards to some particular cases but not for a generalized sector of society such as migrant workers as a whole. As such, it is obvious that there is no existing law in Thailand; that legalizes the entry of alien migrant workers that existed from their mother land, as origin, illegally.

5. Creation of a Semi-legal Status
According to an unofficial explanation made by the Attorney General Office of Thailand, despite the fact there is no legal mechanisms in place for lawful entrance and exit of migrant workers between the two nations, Thailand has established a semi-legal status for Burmese migrant workers. The good office continued to elaborate that this is because Thailand needs cheap labor source whereas the military junta in Burma is unable to create employment opportunities for its own citizen. The question is to which extent the migrant workers will enjoy legal rights. The labor office of Thai government also explains that the migrant workers may not be arrested by Thai police so long as they keep their registration documents. Other than this, there are no protections secured by this semi-legal status.

The semi-legal status may be acquired by Burmese if they first obtain an employer and then pay a fee of 3,800 Baht which entitles them to work officially in Thailand and receive medical insurance. In return for the fee the migrants receive registration documents which on their production in the presence of Thai authori­ties will prevent detention or deportation.

The semi-legal status gained through the registration purports to guard against harassment by Thai authorities but in practice it rarely succeeds in doing so. Registered migrant workers find themselves, despite the additional costs of their registration documents, in the same boat as the unregistered workers and equally exposed to discrimination and harassment in Thailand. While the Thai government has crafted a semi-legal status for migrants through regulations they're un­clear as to exact status of the Burmese in Thailand and precise rights and protections the process endows to the holders of the registration. Although, the Thai officials have put into place and announced the existence of the registration process it still remains inaccessible in terms of actual paper work and information to NGOs working with migrants and the migrants themselves. Furthermore, due to the constant changes in the government's stance towards the status of migrants it is impossible to predict with any amount of certainty how the migrants' status may change. Also, even though the registration was established at the highest level of government it is put into practice in such varying degrees and forms in different areas that it makes it nearly impossible to understand from a constant overview. In addition to all the difficulties faced by Burmese migrant workers due to lack of legal status in Thailand there exists an added concern that by leaving Burma not through legal channels they might have lost their citizenship inside Burma and thus become stateless individuals. Because there is no legal mechanism between Burma and Thailand for the exit and entry of migrants and the migrants do not posses Passports the SPDC can simply choose not to recognize these persons as Burmese citizens and deny their entry to the country. Also, as it has been mentioned previously some Ethnic groups because of discrimination are denied their cognition of their Burmese citizenship within the country therefore if they leave as migrants and enter Thailand the SPDC can deny their entry and refuse to recognize them as Burmese.

Migrant workers are woefully under-informed about the registration process and therefore they are commonly unaware of any benefits or protections they might be entitled to under the procedure. Due to the lack of knowledge about the procedure and the inability to speak Thai it is usually the Thai employer who handles the process and therefore the workers are intentionally kept in the dark about their rights. Although, the workers pay for their registration either upfront or through deductions in their pay they are rarely allowed to posses the original document, which places them at the whim of the employer and exposed to arrest by Thai authorities. Furthermore, in order to obtain registration the worker must first have retained employment and in order to change work location they must accompany their present employer to the labor office. Thus, the position of the worker is reduced to the status of chattel where he/she is merely an object among the inventory of the employer and has no independence separate from his/her employer in the choosing of work locations.

Six Migrant Workers Murder Case
The incident occurred while nine migrant Burmese females, with the assistance of three Burmese males, attempted to fmd jobs at Mae-Pa village in Maesod township, Tak Province on May 14, 2003.

At about 10:30 a.m., the 12 workers left their home near Mae Sot Ceramic Lim­ited Partnership in Tambon Mae Pa to fmd a job at UniOcean factory in Tambon Mae Pa (approximately 6 kilometers from Mae Sot). It is a thirty minute walk from their house to UniOcean.

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