Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing revocation of Visa status. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand steps up screening of "suspicious" foreign nationals. As discussed in other videos, there has been a major paradigm shift just within the last year regarding Immigration moving from more of a law enforcement way of thinking to a serious National Security way of thinking, especially in light of the activities along the border this past summer and then the past few months. On top of that, this whole situation in the Middle East broke out and that led to a situation where Thailand now has to seriously scrutinize folks that are coming into the country, and they are scrutinizing those from foreign nations that are still in Thailand or got here before this even all happened to ascertain whether or not they should be here in the first place, or whether or not they may be some sort of national security threat, possibly stemming from the situation in the Middle East that could be brought to bear here that Thailand really doesn't want to deal with it. So there is a lot going on and I expect right now in Immigration they are rather busy. 

Before I jump into this citation, I think it is worth pointing out my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. Pancake Palace is the name. As the name implies it is a breakfast anytime kind of place. Now that said, we are talking American breakfast. We do have an English breakfast, but we're talking American breakfast and American Diner style food, including hamburgers, cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, and chilli bowls. So again, if you are interested, please come on down; links are in the description below, we'd love to see you. 

That said, let's jump into this, again: Thailand steps up screening of "suspicious” foreign nationals. “Pol Maj Gen Choengron emphasised that the issue is not the quantity of foreign tourists, but their quality. Quoting further: "In 2025 alone 3,249 visas were revoked for foreigners who committed crimes or caused unrest, particularly in tourist areas such as Pattaya, Phuket, Samui and Phangan. In the first two months of this year, 972 visas were revoked, he said." So last year there were 3,249. As of this year, and we are only sitting here in mid-March, there has been 972 revocations.  So that is something to bear in mind. 

And look, at the end of the day, as I have discussed in other videos, one, Thai Immigration is taking a much firmer stance with regard to Immigration matters. If you go back to the time I first got here, Immigration was viewed as an administrative exercise if you will. That changed somewhere around about 2011, '12, '13 especially when we saw the Crackdown on Tourist Visa holders that were effectively living in Thailand and the end of the infinite 30-day stamp - that came to an end as well - and the creation of The Blacklist; that happened around there, around about 2014, 2015, there was a major paradigm shift at that time and they went to kind of more of a law enforcement thinking. 

As I have discussed in other videos, over the past year, we have seen things move even up a notch further from thinking of it as law enforcement to thinking of these matters as National Security. And for that reason, I'm bringing up this video, and I brought up these other ones. Thai Immigration is not messing around. On top of that, if you find yourself in the precarious position of being in Thailand basically at the sufferance of whether or not your status remains again precarious so as to allow you to continue to basically get a Visa waiver in Thailand, that's not something that long-term is going to provide a lot of peace of mind, let's put it that way. And again, depending on your circumstances and this is where my experiences during COVID come up, which is look, it changed things. I don't think this has been such a material change for as many people as COVID was but for the people to whom this has a serious impact upon, it has a serious impact. 

And the point I am trying to make here is if you may be eligible for other types of Visa categories and you are finding yourself stranded, you are thinking it's only going to be a few more days or weeks, that might not be the case; it might be longer. We saw that during COVID. So getting into a long-term Visa is generally a good idea and to get into an early and often rather than being subject to, I hesitate to call it the whims, but the discretionary policy, on an ad hoc basis by the way, of the Thai Government isn't the best place to be especially if you want some sort of level of certainty that you can remain in place, which may be remaining in place longer than even one's home country would want to admit that it's okay to go back to that country. As I discussed in another video regarding Embassy Certification of these matters, some countries may not want to continue certifying people to be able to remain in Thailand on a temporary basis arising from the situation in the Middle East for a variety of different reasons and if they are not going to certify that person to be able to remain in Thailand, the Thais are going to say look we are not going to waive your status; you are going to have to either leave or come up with some other status. Again, you don't want to be put on into that position on the spot. It's better to be put into that position, put yourself in that position basically and sort of take agency if you will or control over your own destiny with regard to your own Visa. 

The point I am trying to make is with all these revocations, with all of this scrutiny coming from Immigration at the moment, it is probably a good idea to be in a standard Visa Epsom salt, some Non-immigrant would probably be preferable to about any of the other statuses that are out there, it is probably a good idea to get into that sort of status sooner rather than later.