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Thai Immigration Arresting Foreigners for Working Illegally?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the arrest of folks that are working illegally in Thailand. 

I came upon this via the Phuket News that is thephuketnews.com, but I actually came across it via Thai Visa so that is thaivisa.com, just to give credit where credit is due there. 

Quoting directly: "Two British nationals have been taken into custody on suspicion of working illegally following a Phuket Immigration raid at an international elementary school in Rawai. Phuket Immigration Deputy Chief Colonel Nareuwat Putthawiro confirmed the Phuket News today November 6th that the two foreigners were taken into custody at the Palm House International School on Wednesday."  So again that is the Phuket News, the title is: Brits Arrested in Phuket International School Immigration Raid. It has also been put out via thaivisa.com. I would urge folks to go ahead and check out either of those sources. Thai Visa will take you to a link to the full story at thephuketnews.com to get some further detail; a lot of nuance there. 

Now the thing to understand with respect to this and we have discussed this at length, Thai Immigration is serious about illegal immigration and the Labour Ministry has made it clear as well that they are pretty serious about it too. They do not like people working illegally in Thailand and especially coming off this rather prolonged amnesty period, I think the kind of overarching attitude if you will is look, people have been accorded a lot of leeway with respect to Immigration. Yes it was warranted, but leeway it was nonetheless and then to have people working illegally coming off of that grant of amnesty to have people working illegally, I suspect that that is not well looked upon. 

For that reason those who are in Thailand who are looking to work, it may be possible to gain a Visa conversion, obtain a Work Permit. Again it is going to be circumstantially dependent but whatever you are doing here in Thailand, make sure it complies with the law. If you are looking to work in Thailand you need to have a Work Permit which means you need either a Business Visa or an O Marriage Visa to support that Work Permit. 

So again, the thing to take away from this video is it is a good idea to be in compliance with relevant Thai law regarding Labour and Immigration in order to remain here over a prolonged period of time.