The administration did grant waivers to groups of Karen refugees who oppose the Myanmar government, and administration officials argue that waivers are the solution.

Mae Tao Clinic was established in 1989 by Dr Cynthia Maung, a Karen refugee, and provides free medical treatment to around 80,000 Burmese migrants a year.

She has previously worked for Burma Campaign UK, and assisting Karen refugees resettled in the United Kingdom.

The largest camp is the one in Mae La, Tak province, Thailand, where about 50,000 Karen refugees are hosted.

In the last year the 70,000 Karen refugees scattered through two dozen camps in Thailand have come under new threat from a breakaway faction called the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

Last year, Karen refugees fleeing the repressions took refuge in Thailand.

Karen refugees were being threatened with forced labour, torture, possibly enforced conscription into the army, and the placing of land mines in the area which they had fled from.

They are a sub-group of Karen refugees originating from the eastern Burmese state of Kayah on the Thailand border.

A third wave of immigration, from 2006 to date, has been primarily of ethnic minorities in Myanmar, in particular Karen refugees from the Thai-Burmese border.

From October 2006 to August 2007, 12,800 Karen refugees resettled in the United States.