Transcript of the above video: 

I put a video up yesterday where I went into kind of a quick overview about how look Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not internal Immigration; they are two different bodies. Internal Immigration here in Thailand, the Immigration Bureau operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior. Ministry of Foreign Affairs is its own Ministry with its own mandate. They deal with visas issued abroad; Immigration deals with visa and Immigration matters pertaining to Thailand internally. Also on a certain level it is my opinion that Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also tasked if you will with doing PR, Public Relations, getting the word out about things like new Visas. So while they are doing what they should be doing, lay people especially and people looking to travel to Thailand should be aware they are not the end all be all authority. In fact they are not the beginning of the authority as to matters pertaining to internal Immigration here in Thailand. Let me dig in a little deeper here. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail that's pattayamail.com, the article is titled: The 60 days Visa exempt and Destination Thailand Visa empower Immigration Officers. And that is a well put article. It empowers Immigration Officers. Again, not Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they are their own thing. Quoting directly: "An interview between the Bangkok Post and a Deputy Director General of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.." again Foreign Affairs Ministry. I get it. This is a high ranking person that does deal with Immigration matters but they don't deal with Immigration matters here in Thailand. They deal with visas issued abroad. Quoting further: "..has clarified some visa ambiguities, but left others to Immigration discretion." Well they haven't left it to anything. It's Immigration's mandate to deal with Immigration matters here in the Kingdom. Quoting further: "The actual recording is, according to the newspaper, available only by downloading the digital web player Spotify. Naruchai Ninnad, representing the Ministry, emphasized that the new policies were designed to increase foreign tourism, in accordance with the Prime Minister's desire to benefit the economy" Quoting further: "Khun Naruchai clarified that tourists from 93 countries receiving the visa-exempt 60 days on entry could indeed extend for a further 30 days at local Immigration. They could then if they wished, leave the country and return the following (not the same) day to obtain a new 60 days and repeat the whole procedure." Well first off, that's at the discretion of a Border Patrol Immigration Officer, either land, air or sea border, that's not at the discretion of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Quite honestly, I'm wondering why they are even chiming in on that, it's not within their bailiwick, that's not what they do. Ministry of Foreign Affairs operates out of Embassies and Consulates outside of Thailand and issues visas, as I have discussed in other videos. And you can look at this, it's very comparable, it is pretty much an apples to apples comparison to the American Immigration system wherein there's Department of State that issues visas at Embassies and Consulates abroad, much like Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then there's Department of Homeland Security, specifically US Customs and Border Protection that deals with ports of entry for example. Then you are dealing with USCIS inside the United States when dealing with ongoing visas, extensions etc. Same thing for Thailand. Immigration in Thailand is a little bit more unified than in the United States probably because smaller country, smaller bailiwick basically. But long story short, very similar. Thai Immigration under the auspices of the Interior Ministry deals with Immigration here in country as well as at the border checkpoints. That doesn't fall under the remit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or I should say, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Quoting further: "They could then, if they wished, leave the country and return the following (not the same) day to obtain a new 60 days and repeat the whole procedure." Again that presumes a lot. Quoting further: "This has implications for the celebrated, single-day border runs which have traditionally operated through agencies in Bangkok and the provinces. If implemented fully, repeat if," and that's a good point, "repeat if". We don't know what this looks like. Quoting further: "...these tourists would need to pay for a night's accommodation in a foreign country, thus raising costs." 

Again and the thing to take away from this video, I think it's a good thing that we're reforming the Immigration system. It's good. I think it's going to bring in a lot more people come high season and I think that's going to be very good for the country so overall I'm happy about this. But one thing that is really, and it seems to be almost cyclical, back in the old days the forums were big on this and it has just kind of evolved over time and become - I'm just kind of used to dealing with it at this point. Things like this come down the pike, a bunch of people run out and make a bunch of quite honestly 'one size fits all absolute statements' on how this thing's going to work and it's nonsense, because at the end of the day, the people that ultimately are going to be adjudicating and making the discretionary decisions associated with Immigration status here in the Kingdom of Thailand are Immigration. Again as we have discussed in other videos, it's one of the reasons I don't really even like talking to officials on the record, off the record, whatever. I prefer looking at data points through the press and I also prefer to look at things over time. 

Look I didn't get into this to be a YouTuber. I'm not looking to go out and scoop everybody and come up with some amazing new idea and then you'll all be enamoured of me on YouTube and click the buttons and bells and whistles and do whatever. I set up a Law Firm out here and 7 years ago, for free, I decided to start doing these videos to provide information to people on how the system works. The reason I bring that up is because I'm not driven by some desire to get a bunch of clicks and likes and views and la la la, by saying things that are oftentimes exactly what people want to hear, but they are also a level of hyperbole that is not in line with what actual expectations in my mind should be. Is this good news? The Destination Thailand Visa and the new exemption status? Absolutely. Do we know every little bit about how this is going to play out over the forthcoming years now that this new Visa and new Visa system is in place? No we don't. So it is wiser to be prudent right now rather than, I don't know, chasing the dragon of the algorithm on YouTube. I'm also a little bit unhappy at the minute with YouTube over all of this because quite honestly, I don't know how they sort of gauge for this, but there tends to be a lot of, again because it's based on clicks and the algorithm and to be clear, I am aware of YouTube, I have tried to be a “YouTuber” on some level. It has been pretty much an abject failure. I don't consider this YouTubing. This is just me, this could be me on public access television somewhere in the ‘80s or something. That's kind of how I view making these videos. But long story short, people that are running around talking about absolutes in the aftermath of a very recent change to Immigration laws and procedure are very, very imprudent.