Summary: "Despite decades of experience with hosting millions of refugees, Thailand?s refugee policies remain fragmented, unpredictable, inadequate and ad hoc, leaving refugees unnecessarily vulnerable to arbitrary and abusive treatment. Thailand is not a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Refugee Convention) or its 1967 Protocol. It has no refugee law or formalized asylum procedures. The lack of a legal framework leaves refugees and asylum seekers in a precarious state, making their stay in Thailand uncertain and their status unclear. Burmese refugees in Thailand face a stark choice: they can stay in one of the refugee camps along the border with Burma and be relatively protected from arrest and summary removal to Burma but without freedom to move or work. Or, they can live and work outside the camps, but typically without recognized legal status of any kind, leaving them at risk of arrest and deportation. It is a choice refugees should not be compelled to make. Many of those who decide to live in the camps do so without being formally registered or recognized. And many of those living outside the camps find the process of applying for and gaining migrant worker status to be prohibitively expensive and out of reach, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, arrest, and deportation. This report looks at the lives both of refugees inside the camps on the Thai-Burma border as well as of Burmese living outside of the camps, many of whom are, in fact, refugees, even though they have not been officially recognized as such, in large part because they are precluded from lodging refugee claims with the government or with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This report also looks at the situation of refugees and asylum seekers from other nationalities and their difficulties in finding predictable and sufficient protection in Thailand. Finally, the report looks at the situation of all migrants in Thailand, including refugees and asylum seekers, in their encounters with police and other authorities, including when faced with being detained in Thailand?s Immigration Detention Centers (IDCs) and with deportation or expulsion from the country..."