Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Destination Thailand Visa or DTV yet again, and we are discussing it in the context of work authorization. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Foreign Crackdown pushed. Quoting directly: "Paisarn Suethanuwong, a committee member of the Professional Tourist Guides Association of Thailand, said the Thai Tourism Industry lacks strict law enforcement against illegal actions committed by foreigners. For many years local guides have faced competition from foreign guides employed by tour companies to serve foreign tourists, especially in the Chinese market, he said." Quoting further: "Allowing illegal foreign guides to persist in major destinations opened the door to other nominee businesses including tour companies, transport and real estate, causing local operators to lose income." Quoting further: "Though we already have comprehensive laws in place, such as Section 12 of the Immigration Act which prohibits" - I quote this again - "which prohibits foreigners from entering the country for employment purposes, the problem is our enforcement is not strict enough." 

Look a lot of folks here in Thailand are getting very upset over the issue of foreigners coming here, engaging in restricted occupations, doing all kinds of things that are illegal on their face or doing things like trying to buy land and things that are illegal at a very deep level here in Thailand, at a very visceral level. Thais have a serious problem with foreigners trying to buy land here. But that said, set that aside. The point I'm trying to make with regard to this video is this whole notion that the DTV has any sort of work authorization has been nonsensical since its outset, and as I have discussed since its promulgation, they created this in the laboratory if you will of the Ministry Foreign Affairs. Well the Ministry of Foreign Affairs doesn't deal with immigration internally, nor do they deal with matters pertaining to work authorization. So they invented something that is not fit to purpose and it doesn't work very well; it's very clunky as it interacts with the other Ministries and Institutions here in Thailand and they just did it and they have made Thailand and all the institution here, have to hold the bag over it, in terms of like "taking the blame". Ministry of Foreign Affairs gets to be the good guy and issue these neato visas, and it's just the mean old folks here in Thailand that won't let them use them the way they are supposed to be used. Well the Ministry of Foreign Affairs doesn't have the authority to issue visas like that. That's what's so galling about all of this is all of this consternation that is going to come from the back end of this DTV experiment, all the negativity is going to redound to people here locally in Thailand, not to the folks who caused the issue in the first place by issuing these - in my opinion - dubiously “featured” if you will, like the features of the visa were dubious from the outset, these sort of dubiously featured visas. They were the ones that set this in motion, and now we have to take the negative blow back now that we have to deal with all these people whose initial status has expired; we have to deal with that here in Thailand. I really hope in the future, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not saddle us with something like this again.

But that being said, it's going to be very interesting to see the interplay between possible crackdowns on work authorization moving forward and the DTV which explicitly has no work authorization here in the Kingdom of Thailand.