Migrants who worked in home care have also been required to quarantine after returning so as not to risk infecting children or elderly clients with the coronavirus, according to union spokeswoman Shara Marquez.

“It is about discrimination in border control for all migrant blue-collar workers,” Marquez said.

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Filipinos and Indonesians normally seek work in Taiwan because jobs there pay more than those in their homelands.

As of October, returning carers of people over age 65 or of children under six years old – populations at relatively higher risk of infection – were required to stay in a quarantine hotel or dormitory over their first few days in Taiwan rather than in a client’s home, the government-run Central News Agency reported in October.

But that rule has disappeared, according to current Central Epidemic Command Centre guidelines.

The quarantine measure is now just a suggestion, Ministry of Labour inspector Lee Hui-fen said.

“We don’t have any quarantine rules, just guidelines for self-initiated precautions,” she said.

But returning migrants must arrange re-entry permits or visas before heading abroad for a holiday, the command centre staff member added. Other foreign residents of Taiwan do not need those documents to return from overseas.

Taiwan still requires pre-departure registration of returning migrants, Lee said, but the form asks for “no special kind of information”.

Carers may go straight from the airport to the homes of their employers if the employers do not mind, she added.

Over the past year, Taiwanese officials have relaxed other rules for foreign workers to expand the offshore labour pool and plug a productivity gap on an island of 24 million people that has one of the world’s lowest birth rates.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Taiwan banned tourists and required quarantine for nearly all arrivals, including Taiwanese citizens returning back from abroad.

In October, the government lifted the rules for citizens, tourists and most returning foreign residents as it shifted toward living with the coronavirus.

Around 50 people, from the DCU and the Migrants Empowerment Network advocacy group, protested outside Taiwan’s cabinet offices in Taipei on Monday.

The union had sent a written complaint to Taiwan’s Ministry of Labour in September.

“Taiwan’s economy needs migrant workers, including those from Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam,” said Darson Chiu, a research fellow with the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research in Taipei.

“In the future, Taiwan’s economy will need them even more than they need Taiwan.”

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The industrialised, export-reliant Taiwanese manufacturing sector relies particularly on migrant workers from Southeast Asia, Chiu added.

Taiwan officials envision expanding the foreign talent pool by 40,000 professionals and 140,000 “technical workers”, including migrant labourers, by 2030.

Around 700,000 Southeast Asian migrant workers live in Taiwan, and 200,000 of those work in home care, often for disabled or elderly people, Marquez estimated.

Filipinos typically travel to their home country for Christmas.

At least one Filipino worker has been barred from boarding a flight back to Taiwan because her employer did not make a “quarantine” hotel booking that she could show at the airport check-in counter in the Philippines, Marquez said.