Immigration needs reform

Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's initiative to launch a new department to tackle immigration issues is welcome, if not long overdue.

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If approved, the new department will have wide-ranging responsibilities related to national security, public welfare, and legal rights for all residents, both Thais and foreigners.

These include matters such as residency permits, work authorisation, citizenship applications, and civil registration.

The Interior Ministry will ask the cabinet and parliament to pass the law sometime this year.

Under the proposal, all state agencies under other agencies such as the Police Immigration Bureau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the department that handles political refugees in the National Security Council, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, which handles human trafficking, will move to work under a new department under the Interior Ministry.