N/A

In the time of COVID-19 pandemic, in order to stop the spread of the virus, borders were shut and
people’s movement was restricted. In Thailand, movement control measures and regulations were
imposed by the government while some migrant workers stuck inside the countries without necessary
support and some returned home out of the fear of virus and economic situation, waiting to re-migrate.
Even though the general impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers had been thoroughly investigated,
the impacts of movement control measures imposed by the national government on migrant workers
during this current pandemic had not been examined. The initial research found that movement controls,
to some certain extend, affected the decisions to mobilize of migrant workers.
To fill in the research gap, qualitative research using case studies has been adopted with in-depth
interviews with stakeholders and document research. The findings and discussion reveal that movement
control measures imposed during COVID-19 pandemic affected the decisions to migrate or re-migrate.
By using the aspirations-capabilities framework, it was concluded that migrants sometimes made
decisions to mobilize, which counteracted the movement controls being imposed, as they deemed the
illegal pathway one of the perceived opportunity structures made by the initial migrant workers.
Movement controls measures and regulations also had significant impacts on migrant workers in
Thailand. Some of the policies were discriminately imposed on migrant workers with no support
provided by the government during the immobility. Nationality was used as a requirement for financial
and medical support, chasing migrant workers to the edge of hardship outside their own home. They
were also at risk of losing their visa status and getting repatriated as the government emergency policies
did not align with the immigration policies.

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