Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "ghost border runs". I am doing a series of these as these come to my attention or as I think of them. They are little tidbits about the history if you will of some aspects of Thai Immigration; maybe I should say being an expat in Thailand. Certain aspects of what it was like in the past.

One thing that is a major change from times past is the “Ghost Border Run”. There was a time in Thailand, and this probably sounds really funny today, it is almost just from a different era because it is I guess. There was a time and this was back when there was basically the “infinite border run” and the infinite border run was basically, there was no rule regarding the limit on the number of 30-day stamps. Certain passport holders most notably Western passport holders generally speaking, folks from the US, the Anglosphere, Western Europe even Australia, New Zealand passports like that, they could just get a 30-day stamp at any border, anytime they came in any border checkpoint. There was really no limit; there was no legal limit let's say. You could and I had heard of people that had run into Immigration Officers that would see that someone had just row after row after row in their passport, out-ins, and they would live in Thailand for years doing that. Well one convenience that grew up, became kind of a cottage industry, is this notion of a “ghost border run”. Basically what this practice was, there was a time when there was a lot of Border running agencies. People would put people in a bus, put folks in a van maybe or something, drive people to the border, get them stamped out and get them stamped back in. Apparently it became this underground activity where yeah if you threw somebody some money, they would put that passport on the bus and they would take it out to the border; that person wouldn’t go but that passport would get stamped out and in and then “Oh that person has now gotten themselves another 30 days of status without actually needing to go to the Border.

Well over time, the Immigration Authorities, the apparatus, the wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly but they do turn. That practice got known and they started enforcing measures to counteract it; they didn't want that. The Immigration apparatus wanted folks to come and go; they wanted people to actually check in at a border checkpoint which I do understand the notion behind that. Also around that same time they changed the policy on infinite border stamps so that became not necessarily the most easy yeah well it actually when they first changed the policy it went to you could only get three 30-day stamps for every 6 month period and then it became this dance of some people would then have to go get a tourist visa for the other three months and then hop back into the three consecutive 30-day stamps then that went away and then we got up into the mid-teens, 2000 teens, where they started really going cracking down on folks that were living in Thailand just entirely in tourism status that again that they didn't really want that happening. They wanted folks in proper non-immigrant status.

Long story short, yeah the “ghost border run” was a thing. It existed for a fairly prolonged period of time. As I said, it was something of a cottage industry. Folks got in serious trouble over it when it finally was uncovered and the Immigration Authorities started taking steps to counteract it. It is an example, in my opinion a kind of a normalcy bias. A lot of folks got really used to it and then when it went away it caused a lot of consternation to folks. The thing to take away from this video I think on this overall topic is just always strive to stay in proper status and do it the correct way.