KMT lawmakers call for improved government efforts to tackle absconded migrant workers

Taipei, Jan. 14 (CNA) Several lawmakers of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) said Tuesday a recent incident at the Taoyuan International Airport that has allowed a Vietnamese migrant worker to illegally overstay her work permit highlights the government's failure to prevent migrant workers from absconding.

The Vietnamese worker had reached the limit on the number of years she could work in Taiwan and must leave the country, KMT lawmaker Wang Yu-min (王育敏) told a news conference at the Legislature.

The worker was taken to the airport by her manpower broker and entered the security screening area before she appeared to take a phone call and started changing her clothes in the line, apparently to disguise herself, Wang said, showing surveillance camera footage the KMT caucus had obtained from the airport.

In just 11 minutes, the woman rushed out of the terminal, ran into a taxi, and left the scene, the footage showed.

KMT lawmaker Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲) said judging by the phone call the woman took, there was likely an organization illegally helping her to find work in Taiwan.

Wan asked competent authorities to investigate whether any parties were complicit in the incident and mete out necessary punishments.

Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), another KMT lawmaker, also said the incident highlighted a security loophole and asked the airport to launch a thorough investigation.

Citing government statistics, Wang Yu-min said more than 200 migrant workers that should have left Taiwan had run from airports from 2020 to 2024, while the number of unaccounted-for migrant workers rose significantly to 90,269 in November 2024, from 48,545 in January 2020.

The lawmakers said the government should come up with methods to improve the management of migrant workers and improve their working conditions to prevent them from becoming unaccounted for or absconding.

In its response, the Ministry of Labor said that manpower brokers should request airport police escort migrant workers being repatriated if there is concern that they could refuse to leave and overstay their work permit.

The ministry said it would improve enforcement of a rule that suspends the operating permits of manpower brokers with an excessive percentage of migrant workers absconding.

The National Immigration Agency said bucking the trend of migrant workers absconding is an interdepartmental effort that involves holistic policymaking by competent authorities such as the ministries of labor and agriculture to increase their wages and review recruitment channels.

Local governments, meanwhile, should enforce labor inspections to improve migrants' living and working conditions, the agency said.

It said that no agency can singlehandedly drive down migrant workers' absconding rate, and that it will continue offering the labor ministry suggestions based on its experience pursuing unaccounted-for migrants.