Migration news from Asia
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> Cambodia's crackdown on scamming centres
> India accused of expelling refugees at night
> Japan tightens immigration rules
> Bangladesh attempts again to address the refugee crisis
Cambodia cracks down on scamming centres, but workers are often treated as criminals rather than as victims of trafficking (Photo: Khmer Times)
CAMBODIA
Cambodia's crackdown on cyber-scam centres leaves thousands of victims of trafficking in limbo
August 2026: Cambodian authorities say roughly 200,000 workers from 35 countries have now been freed from cyber-scam compounds since a sweeping crackdown intensified late last year.
However, rights groups warn that many of the freed workers, most of whom were trafficked or coerced into the industry, remain effectively trapped: stripped of their passports, fined for visa overstays, and treated by officials as immigration violators rather than victims.
The compounds, walled, guarded complexes where workers are forced to run online romance, investment and cryptocurrency scams targeting victims abroad, have operated across Cambodia for several years, generating billions of dollars annually, according to the anti-trafficking group International Justice Mission.
A United Nations assessment in 2023 estimated that at least 100,000 people in Cambodia and a further 120,000 in Myanmar were being held in forced-scamming operations. Cambodia's Interior Ministry says that nearly 200 compounds have been sealed and more than 170 people arrested since Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered an intensified campaign, following a US indictment and a Chinese extradition request targeting alleged organisers, including the conglomerate Prince Holding Group.
The closures have released tens of thousands of workers at once, many without money, documents or any support network. Cambodia charges $10 a day in fines for visa overstays, a debt that, for victims of trafficking often held for months without legal status, can grow to thousands of dollars before they are ever freed.
Amnesty International, which interviewed 423 people who had passed through the compounds, documented torture, forced labour and child trafficking at more than 50 sites, and has accused Cambodian authorities of pursuing immigration enforcement against survivors rather than identifying them as trafficking victims, a distinction that determines whether they can access protection and repatriation support.
Some aid workers report that a number of freed workers, unable to pay their way home, have drifted back into the compounds, which continue to recruit despite the crackdown.
Foreign embassies in Phnom Penh have faced queues of citizens seeking emergency travel documents. Indonesia's embassy has recorded more than 1,200 repatriations since late January, with over 5,200 nationals registering their presence in the country. Researchers have highlighted the Philippines for conducting its own victim-identification process and for offering ongoing support after workers return home.
South Korea's response illustrates the ambiguity at the heart of the crisis: after a 22-year-old student was found dead, allegedly tortured, following forced labour in a scam compound, Seoul negotiated the return of dozens of South Korean nationals, who arrived home in handcuffs to face criminal investigation as suspected scammers rather than being received as trafficking victims.
Cambodia's Interior Ministry has rejected the criticism, saying it has rescued and repatriated workers, including trafficking victims, in accordance with the law. However, researchers, including those at Harvard's Asia Center, have questioned how far the current crackdown reflects sustained reform rather than a response to acute international pressure, given the compounds' documented links to local business and political interests. Amnesty has said Cambodian police have removed bodies from compounds without pursuing the site managers responsible.
Caveat: The true number of people still held in Cambodian scam compounds, as opposed to those already freed, is not independently verifiable; estimates rely on a mix of government figures, NGO interviews and embassy records that do not fully align, and enforcement operations in neighbouring Myanmar, Laos and along the Thai border continue to complicate any single national count.
Sources and methodology: Based on reporting from NPR, Forbes, Al Jazeera, Radio Free Asia, the Khmer Times, Associated Press, and China Global South Project, alongside Amnesty International's 2025 investigation and figures from Cambodia's Interior Ministry and the International Justice Mission.
A note on terminology: The Immigrant Times uses "trafficked" or "trafficking victim" to describe individuals coerced or deceived into forced labour, distinct from "irregular" migrants who enter by choice outside official channels; this distinction is central to the dispute described above over how Cambodian authorities have classified those freed from the compounds.
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INDIA / BANGLADESH
India accused of nightly expulsion of Rohingya and Bengali Muslims
July 2026: Human Rights Watch and Bangladeshi border officials say Indian authorities are continuing to force Rohingya refugees and ethnic Bengali Muslims across the border into Bangladesh at night, often without verifying nationality, in a practice both sides call "push-ins."
Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) states it thwarted 21 attempts by India's Border Security Force (BSF) to push more than 200 people, including children, into Bangladeshi border districts since 1 June. HRW, in a 16 June statement, said it interviewed nine witnesses who described BSF personnel bringing groups to the border after dark and forcing them through breaches in the fence. Some incidents left families stranded for days in the ‘zero line’ no-man's land: in Panchagarh, ten people, including three children, were stranded for 75 hours amid lightning and heavy rain before the BSF withdrew them; in Thakurgaon, an 11-strong group including a pregnant woman and child was stranded for nearly 48 hours.
The expulsions have strained BGB-BSF relations. At a director-general-level conference in New Delhi (8–11 June), BGB formally protested incidents involving Rohingya, Myanmar nationals, and Indian citizens, and demanded an immediate halt; BSF countered by urging Bangladesh to expedite nationality verification. Confrontations at the border have become more tense: at Jamalpur in June, a BSF officer reportedly threatened to open fire during a stand-off over an elderly man left in no-man's-land, prompting an angry exchange with BGB personnel. Rights group Ain o Salish Kendra recorded at least 34 Bangladeshi deaths from BSF fire in 2025, the highest in five years.
India maintains its actions target ‘illegal infiltrators’ under domestic law, and that a bilateral mechanism exists for verified repatriation. Bangladesh says over 2,860 nationality verification requests remain unanswered in Delhi, some for more than 5 years.
This report draws on statements and data from Human Rights Watch (16 June 2026), Border Guard Bangladesh press releases, and reporting by The Daily Star, Dhaka Tribune, Prothom Alo and Al Jazeera.
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JAPAN
Japan tightens immigration rules while the economy relies on foreign workers
June 2026: The Japanese government has implemented a series of measures to tighten control over immigration and foreign residents, as the number of people living in Japan from abroad reached an all-time high in 2025.
According to data released by the Immigration Services Agency, the number of foreign residents in Japan increased to 4.13 million in 2025, reaching a record high. The figures reflect Japan's growing reliance on overseas workers to offset the impact of an ageing and shrinking domestic population.
The government's response has involved restricting the number of foreign residents. In January 2026, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's administration unveiled a policy package called ‘Comprehensive Measures for Accepting Foreign Nationals and Orderly Coexistence’. The measures include making naturalisation more difficult and doubling the number of state-funded deportations. The package also introduced stricter compliance requirements for employers of foreign workers and new sector-by-sector controls on labour recruitment.
Critics have argued that the framework is contradictory, tightening the conditions under which foreign nationals can settle permanently while the economy continues to rely on their labour. Japan's Specified Skilled Worker programme, which provides a formal route for overseas recruitment in designated sectors, has been subject to new operating rules under the same policy package, though the government has stopped short of reducing the number of workers admitted under the scheme.
In April, the lower house of parliament approved a bill to raise the fee cap for immigration procedures. Under the new schedule, residence fees will range from ¥10,000 for three-month stays to ¥70,000 (US$440) for five-year residence permits. The legislation also includes plans to introduce JESTA, an online advanced screening system for short-term visitors, expected in 2028, to ease airport congestion and reduce overstays.
The January measures follow a significant shift in public opinion documented in a December 2025 survey, in which nearly 60 per cent of Japanese respondents said they opposed or somewhat opposed the active acceptance of foreign workers, a 15-percentage-point increase from the previous year. The government's policy package appears partly designed to respond to that sentiment while maintaining the labour recruitment mechanisms the economy relies upon.
Sources: Immigration Services Agency of Japan; The Japan Times; Nippon.com.
Further reading from The Immigrant Times: Japan debates immigration || Foreign workers in Japan ||
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BANGLADESH / ROHINGYA REFUGEES
Bangladesh’s new government tries to address the Rohingya refugee crisis as international aid diminishes
April 2026: The Rohingya are a Muslim minority who have lived for centuries in Myanmar (formerly Burma), but they have been denied citizenship by the government, which regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Facing systematic persecution, hundreds of thousands fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following a military crackdown in 2017 that the United Nations described as bearing the hallmarks of genocide.
Now, eight years on, Bangladesh has established a new government body to coordinate its response to the crisis, as the country continues to bear one of the world's largest refugee populations with diminishing international support and no realistic prospect of repatriation in sight.
The new committee, announced on 24 April 2026 and led by the interior minister, will oversee security, humanitarian aid, and repatriation efforts across the camps in Cox's Bazar and on the island of Bhasan Char. It has been tasked with improving coordination among government agencies, strengthening camp management, and supporting repatriation efforts. The move reflects growing frustration within Bangladesh at the slow pace of international engagement and the increasing administrative complexity of managing a crisis now entering its ninth year.
By January 2026, Bangladesh was hosting 1,182,755 Rohingya refugees from 245,998 families, including 143,327 new arrivals. Most are descended from or among the approximately 750,000 people who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State in August 2017. The camps in Cox's Bazar are among the largest and most densely populated in the world.
Conditions within the camps have deteriorated as donor funding has declined. A major fire in January 2026 displaced over 2,000 refugees, exposing the fragility of shelters that are susceptible to fires, floods, and landslides. Food rations have been cut, livelihood opportunities remain severely limited, and access to education is constrained. Reduced food supplies, worsening living conditions, and limited opportunities have increased vulnerabilities, sometimes driving individuals towards informal or illegal activities, which raises additional security concerns.
The new government of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, which assumed office following elections in February 2026, has reaffirmed Bangladesh's long-standing stance that repatriation to Myanmar remains the only sustainable long-term solution. However, the government has recognised that Rohingya communities may need to stay in Bangladesh until conditions in Rakhine State improve.
Those conditions show little sign of improving. Since the Myanmar military coup of 2021, fighting between the junta and ethnic armed groups has intensified. The Arakan Army now controls large parts of Rakhine State, creating an uncertain new dynamic: the group has shown some pragmatic openness towards Bangladesh, but its long-term intentions regarding the Rohingya remain unclear.
Previous repatriation efforts have repeatedly failed because refugees have refused to return without guarantees of safety, citizenship, and dignity — guarantees that no authority in Myanmar has been able or willing to provide. The lesson of 2018 and 2019, when organised repatriation attempts collapsed, has not translated into a fundamentally different diplomatic strategy.
The 2025–26 Joint Response Plan, led by the Bangladeshi government, requires US$934.5 million to support 1.48 million people, including refugees and Bangladeshi host communities. Donor fatigue has left that appeal considerably underfunded. The United States, historically one of the largest contributors to global refugee programmes, has markedly reduced its humanitarian commitments under the current administration, placing additional pressure on an already strained system.
Bangladesh has described itself as the second victim of the crisis after the Rohingya themselves. The creation of the new coordinating body suggests the government is trying to reassert control over a situation that has become structurally entrenched, but without a political resolution in Myanmar, administrative reform can only do so much. For over a million people living in tarpaulin shelters on a narrow strip of coastline, the question of when, or whether they will ever return home, remains as unanswerable as it was eight years ago.
Sources: Muslim Network TV; The Diplomat; Observer Research Foundation (ORF); Rohingya Response Joint Response Plan; World Vision; Al Jazeera.
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INDIA / GERMANY
India and Germany agree on fast-track access for Indian care workers
January 2026: India and Germany have signed a new agreement aimed at accelerating the integration of Indian health and care workers into the German labour market. The deal was concluded during a visit to India by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and focuses primarily on nursing and long-term care professions.
At the heart of the agreement is the advanced alignment of training standards. Indian nursing qualifications will be structured to closely match German requirements, allowing recognition procedures to be completed largely before workers arrive in Germany. This is intended to avoid lengthy and bureaucratic post-arrival recognition processes, which have long been cited as a bottleneck in cross-border recruitment.
The agreement also provides for structured language training and adaptation phases, enabling care workers to begin employment under supervision while completing any remaining regulatory or language requirements. Dedicated coordination points will be established in both countries to streamline visa issuance, qualification recognition and job placement.
The initiative will begin with a pilot phase covering nursing and elderly care, with intake levels to be reviewed regularly and expanded if demand persists. Recruitment is to follow ethical standards and focus on newly trained personnel, to avoid weakening India’s domestic healthcare system.
Germany’s move reflects wider pressures across the European Union, where ageing populations and staff shortages are placing increasing strain on health and care services. Several EU member states are exploring similar partnerships with third countries to secure long-term workforce capacity in essential sectors.
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