UNHCR and allow the UNHCR access to persons who are detained.207 The UNHCR then
conducts refugee status determination interviews of asylum-seekers who are not from Burma.208
The UNHCR is also allowed to conduct refugee status determination interviews in other prisons
and immigration detentions centers.209
Once refugees from nations that border Thailand are detained, they are often informally
deported back to their country of origin.210 For example, persons from Burma constitute the
largest group of people who enter Thailand without proper documentation; they are often taken to
the border and either left there or made to cross.211 In 2006, the Thai Government deported as
many as ten thousand people per month back to Burma.212 Those who are informally deported in
this manner are frequently left in locations where there are no Burmese government officials to
oversee movement across the border.213 But some of these border points are controlled by
insurgent groups who demand bribes from the deportee in order to be released from the insurgent
group and allowed to cross the border back into Thailand.214 While formal deportations do occur,
this puts refugees at risk because authorities from the refugee’s country of origin are notified
prior to the deportation, exposing the refugee to persecution when they arrive.215 Persons from
nations who do not border Thailand “tend not to be deported for illegal presence, generally
because of the high cost of removing them. They are, however, subject to long periods of
indefinite detention.”216
1. Refugees from Burma
Over the past few decades, Thailand has seen an influx of more than three million
refugees.217 The majority of those refugees for the past twenty years have come from Burma.218
The Government of Thailand has generally recognized those fleeing Burma as “displaced persons
fleeing fighting.”219 However, to be recognized as such a person, the Burmese refugees are
required to be admitted to and stay in one of the nine isolated border camps on the Burmese-Thai
border.220 The Thai Provincial Admissions Board (the “Board”) determines admissibility into the
camps.221 The Board is the agency in charge of completing refugee status determinations for all
Burmese asylum-seekers, and “[r]eports indicate that the [Board] . . . does not recognize the
Rohingya as needing protection in the camps.”222 In addition, if a refugee leaves the camp, they
are at risk of being detained and deported.223
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207 Id.
208 Id.
209 Id.
210 Id. at 4.
211 Id. at 12.
212 Id.
213 Id.
214 Id.
215 Id. at 4.
216 Id. at 12; Michael Bachelard, Rohingya Refugees a Growing Problem for Indonesia, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Apr. 9, 2013),
http://www.smh.com.au/world/rohingya-refugees-a-growing-problem-for-indonesia-20130408-2hh6w.html.
217 GAPS IN REFUGEE PRO TECTION, supra note 82, at 4.
218 Id. at 7.
219 Id.
220 Id.
221 Id. at 13.
222 Ostrand, supra note 24.
