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Consular Reports of Birth Abroad for Thais Born Outside of Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

As the title suggests we are going to be talking about Consular Reports of Birth Abroad but in this video unlike our other videos associated with Consular reports of birth abroad for Americans born in Thailand this video is about Thais born outside of Thailand.

Thailand takes a rather interesting approach with respect to its nationality laws; they basically apply broadly based across the board jus sanguinis policy which is basically someone born to a Thai is always going to be a Thai. So it is kind of a bloodline type of policy with respect to nationality and this is regardless, or irrespective of where they're born; so born in the Kingdom, born outside the Kingdom is largely irrelevant. It all comes down to the parentage of the individual and question.

So a child born to a Thai or Thais outside of the Kingdom is presumably born with Thai nationality although documenting up that nationality is a requirement of the parents or perhaps later of the child. Preferably, the parents as getting this issue sorted out as quickly as possible after the birth is optimal. I have dealt with multiple different Consular Report of Birth Abroad matters along with colleagues of mine on the Thai side as well as on my own with respect to American issues and the longer this goes by, the more difficult it is to deal with proving up the nationality of the individual in question as well as just sort of a general, kind of, for lack of a better term, institutional inertia that kind of operates against an individual coming along 18-20 years down the road to take up their nationality. I don't think it's a conscious thing going on here but I do think that individuals involved in processing those individuals through, maybe subconsciously are kind of moving a little slower and all aspects of this because the thinking is “well where have you been for 20 years?”, if it has taken 20 years for that individual to come along. That being said, that is not a legal argument against one taking up their nationality or documenting up their nationality. But that being said, getting this done as quickly as possible is the best course of action. So a Thai born say in the United States is going to go ahead and need a Consular Report of Birth Abroad issued, which is like a birth certificate issued by the Consulate with jurisdiction over the individual. That individual, their parents will then need to apply for a passport on their behalf in order to travel back into Thailand and then presumably the best way to deal with it is to get that individual registered onto a Tabien Baan or a house book at their earliest possible opportunity. In some cases it may be possible to do this abroad, but I have often found that this is probably the most straightforward course of action to bring that individual back to Thailand as soon as possible, get them on to their house book and then once that's done, pretty much everything from there just sort of happens in short order.

So the thing to take away from this video is Consular Report of Birth Abroad can and is issued by the Consulate with jurisdiction over the individual’s place of birth. It's a good idea to get that issued as soon as possible; passports can be issued shortly thereafter on younger children and then as soon as possible getting back to the Kingdom and getting into the house registration database is the best idea especially if that child is going to remain abroad for a substantial period of time thereafter so that they can go ahead and get passports on their own later etc. etc. ID card: Thai ID cards can be issued abroad but as of now it is my understanding it is best if the individual is already in a house book back here in Thailand before getting that ID issued abroad as it can cause complications if that individual is not in the database at the time they try to go ahead and get their ID card issued.

So these are some things to think about. Those who are interested in these matters urge to contact a firm like ours if you are having real issues with this. This can get complicated, it can get quite time consuming. It can get resource and time expensive so a really good idea to get this sorted out as quickly as possible after a child is born.