Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing congestion at passport control at Immigration checkpoints here in Thailand. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, article is titled: Thai airports tighten passenger screening. Quoting directly: "Thai airports have been ordered to strictly screen all Cambodian nationals entering Thailand under the Visa-free scheme and to also tighten checks against foreign mercenaries entering the country, amid the escalating conflict at the border. The Immigration Bureau on Monday asked foreign tourists to understand the situation which could result in congestion at passport control." 

Yeah look, look at the end of the day, we have a really serious situation going on along the Thai border. Thailand is at war essentially. Now this may be a short war, it may be prosecuted in a very efficient manner and concluded in a very quick way. Again remains to be seen, but long story short this is having implications inside Immigration. As I have discussed in other videos, we've also seen a major paradigm shift within Immigration, most notably there was a paradigm shift some decade ago, a dozen years back where it really shifted from being viewed as Administrative, over to kind of a Law Enforcement mindset. That shifted again and if you will, it has gone up a notch, and we are now seeing it being thought of much in the same vein as national security matters. So don't expect this to abate anytime soon. One, again the notion of foreign mercenaries noted in this article is something to take note of because it means this is likely to not just impact Cambodian passport holders, or folks that might be suspected of being Cambodian passport holders, it's also going to possibly pertain to foreigners because they are scrutinizing folks on the basis that they might be some sort of mercenary coming into Thailand at the behest of Cambodia specifically. Again, whether there's any merit to that, I'm not sure. My personal opinion is under the circumstances frankly, better safe than sorry. If there's any kind of indication that foreign mercenaries could be used by some foreign power against Thais in Thailand, yeah that's exactly what Immigration's purpose is, is to keep that out. So if that's what they're doing then yeah, I absolutely see the reasoning behind it. 

Now that being said, it could cause inconvenience to those foreign nationals looking to come in Thailand - either who are living and working here, who spend relatively long amounts of time here on sort of a long-term traveller model, or just regular tourists - look, it is going to result in a little bit more delay at Immigration checkpoints due to just the underlying circumstances. The fact that Thailand is at war is causing is causing Immigration processing to move slower as heightened scrutiny is being placed on individuals entering the Kingdom of Thailand.