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Extradition and Expedited Deportation from Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are going to be discussing extradition, although we are discussing it in a specific context, there is a more general video that we have done on this channel; information about overview of extradition and how it sort of operates here in the Kingdom. For those who want to know about extradition more generally, I really, really recommend checking out that channel. But this video is to discuss kind of a more narrow aspect of what can only be described as extradition but it is sort of extradition by other means.

What I am talking about here is Thai immigration can use its plenary powers to go ahead and effectively extradite a foreign national from the Kingdom without using the extradition treaty per se. What are we talking about here? Well first of all this only is going to pertain to those who are a national of the requesting country. So let's say for example you have got a US national, they have fled the United States jurisdiction and they have come to Thailand and there is an outstanding fugitive warrant for example for that individual and they are found in Thailand. The United States, rather than undertaking the extradition process, can request from Thailand that the individual simply be deported and Thailand can use its plenary power to deport that individual and at that point, the American Authorities can request that that individual be deported specifically to America and that will probably happen. The Thai Authorities have been known to cooperate quite frequently with American Authorities in these matters. But the thing to take away from this video is this is only occurring in an immigration context hence the reason that part of the title discusses expedited deportation or what I also called expedited removal. I am using this terminology which is being borrowed from US Immigration jurisprudence specifically the IRAIIRA Act which essentially dealt with, it created the notion of expedited removal that immigration officers can go ahead and just sort of summarily deport individuals at the border who were trying to get in but we're clearly doing so under false pretenses or doing something that the immigration officer felt was outside of the rules of the immigration law. This is similar, this is similar in that an extradition contacts but Thailand takes of you and it is codified in their immigration laws that a Thai National has a right to reside in Thailand but everybody else is simply in Thailand sort of temporarily, well not necessarily everybody because we have got Permanent Residents here in Thailand but strictly speaking, those individuals in Thailand basically at the sufferance of Thai Immigration Authorities. They don't have an unfettered right to remain and their immigration status can be revoked at any time and for this reason, if the Thai Immigration Authorities receive a request from the country of nationality of an individual in the Kingdom, they don't have to undertake extradition. The Thai Authorities, if they feel like it can go ahead and simply cancel that foreign national's visa status and deport them back to the country that would otherwise be requesting extraditions. So in a way it is simply a deportation matter; it is an immigration issue, but if you look at it from the concept of extradition this can oftentimes be used in such a way as to, I won't say circumvent but it is sort of a parallel system that can be used in lieu of extradition, especially where that foreign national is a national of the country that would otherwise be making the extradition request.