Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Consular jurisdiction for the purposes of processing Thai O Visas. Now first thing to bear in mind is Thai O Visas, the O category is a miscellaneous category associated with O Visa status, whatever that may be. So it might be an O Marriage Visa, could be an O Retirement Visa, could be an O-A Retirement Visa but specifically the purpose of this video is to talk about Consular jurisdiction. So what is that?

A given Embassy or Consulate has what I call Consular jurisdiction, and in the American vernacular when you are talking about US Immigration Law, you will also be talking about Consular jurisdiction. A perfect example of this, back when there used to be a local USCIS office here in Bangkok, if you wanted to file a case, for example an I-130 for an Immigrant Spouse to the United States and you wanted to go ahead and use the USCIS Office here locally, you had to prove that you had been living in Thailand for a total of a year to file at that office. Similarly it now appears due to the introduction of the E-Visa protocols associated with Thai Consulates and Embassies throughout the world, there now seems to be a similar component associated with Consular jurisdiction in Third Countries. So let's say you are an American, let's say you are in South Korea, you want to apply for a Thai O Visa, under whatever category, you just want to apply for a Thai O Visa, under those circumstances, you are probably going to have to show and again we don't know the exact ramifications of this, we are only just now seeing all of this stuff come about especially in the aftermath of the Emergency Decree and all of that coming up high season, so I may have to do some follow-up videos on this, but long story short, yeah there is now increasingly this component where you are going to have to show that you are physically present in that given country even though you are not a citizen or maybe even a resident, but you have got to show you have some sort of ties to that place, you have been there for a prolonged period of time.

This could herald kind of a change in Visa running moving forward, again we may have further videos on that moving forward but something to bear in mind is that look these days Consular jurisdiction and the amount of time you have been in that jurisdiction may weigh very heavily on the analysis as to whether or not you are going to be able to actually process an application for a Thai O Visa at that Embassy, in that jurisdiction.