Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing TM30 in Thailand. Let's just go ahead and jump in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Rising crime prompts Visa-free policy review impacting Pattaya's business and expat community. Yeah, this is a pretty good article. I urge those who are checking out this video, maybe go check out that article as well. 

Also, while I'm talking, before I get into the citation, folks have asked me how they can sort of support us even if they might not need to avail themselves of a law firm. We are not monetized on this channel, but I do try to provide information to the expat community, so if you're interested in supporting us, my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. It's called Pancake Palace. As the name implies, breakfast anytime including American Diner style food: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, chilli bowls, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, chilli dogs. If you're interested, check out the link in the description below, and come see us. 

That said, let's jump in here in this Pattaya Mail article, quoting directly: "Heightened Chonburi Immigration vigilance”. Quote: "Expect a rigorous enforcement of existing Immigration Laws. This includes intensified scrutiny of TM30 (Notification of Residence) compliance, meticulous background checks during Visa Extensions, and a zero-tolerance approach to overstayers." 

Yeah, I have talked about this in other videos and sort of, that excerpt is sort of an aside within a sort of broader context article. But yeah, I think it's safe to say we are likely to be seeing increased scrutiny to say the least across the board within Thai Immigration. I think we are going into low season. This is usually the season where we see Immigration tighten up as a general sort of rule of thumb if you will. But this year, especially in light of events that occurred going back the past year, and the fact we now have a Parliament in place that is relatively stable and sort of right of centre. and very, very concerned with issues associated with national sovereignty, I think one of the upshots of this is seeing more scrutiny, more oversight in an Immigration capacity. Also, as have I discussed in other videos, they are digitizing everything at Immigration which is resulting in basically just more nitpicking basically associated with Immigration matters. 

Now again, with regard to the TM30, the TM30 is an interesting one because I actually sort of remember when they rolled this back out. It's always been on the books, but if you go back about, boy, it's going on a decade ago, it's about 9 years ago I want to say, it’s 2017-2018 before we really saw TM30 sort of push forward. I remember there was a, if I recall correctly, there was like a Press Conference at the Foreign Correspondence Club about 3 or 4 months after we saw TM30 being rolled out in earnest. Yeah, it's been a long, strange trip when it comes to the TM30, but it's now necessary and it looks like as we're moving forward, both heightened scrutiny as well as technological advances are going to result in this thing being sort of more thorough than it has been in the past.