Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing visa overstay issues and the possibility of having this matter referred to the Cabinet. So to be clear what is going on here? In the aftermath of the war that seems almost spontaneously broken out in the Middle East, and the aftermath associated with therewith, most notably the closure of airports and the inability of folks to get back to where they came from - either a country that is somewhere else other than the Middle East and they were sort of traversing the Middle East, or to the Middle East itself - again there are a lot of folks stranded here in Thailand, and very much to their credit, Immigration Officials, folks from the Tourism and Sports Ministry as well, have gone out of their way to accommodate these folks. They are making provisions to make sure these people don't go into overstay; there's also a 2,000 baht per day stipend associated with being stranded in Thailand. So again, Thailand has pulled out all stops to make sure that the guests of this country are well taken care of during this trying time and it's very audible what's happened. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand offers visa relief after flights canned. Quoting directly: "The Government has introduced Visa relief measures after 166 flights were cancelled amid Middle East fighting, with Immigration waiving overstay fines for stranded travellers. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports said it is closely monitoring travel disruption linked to the conflict between Israel and Iran. Under the Immigration Act, foreign nationals who overstay solely due to airspace closures will be exempted from fines if they intend to depart Thailand. Those whose visas have not yet expired but wish to remain temporarily, may be granted extensions of up to 30 days at a time subject to certification from their Embassies." 

Yeah, so for those who may not know this, back during COVID, there was a procedure wherein folks that were getting stranded in Thailand were able to continue to get these discretionary extensions of their visa, but they actually had to start going to their Embassies to certify that yeah, they couldn't go back home. There were different certification processes for different countries, but it may come to that, a situation where Thai Immigration says hey, yeah, we get it, but you've been here 90 days, you've been here however many days, again hard to say; it depends how long this thing drags out. But they may require folks to go to their Embassies to go get it certified that yeah, this person can't return to our country yet, or it's a very bad situation and theoretically they might be able to return, but it's not a good time sort of thing. An Embassy can certify "hey will you please go ahead and give them some more time here in Thailand" and it's like sort of a courtesy if you will from one nation to the other that they would allow that to continue. That's how they did it under COVID. I expect it'll be a similar procedure now.

That said, quoting further: "Should the crisis become prolonged and overstays increase, the matter may be referred to the Cabinet.” And again, if this gets big enough, they may make specific rules to deal with this. We actually saw that if you go back into March of 2020 when they executed the Emergency Decree or invoked it. That said, quoting further: "Airlines have been asked to ensure passengers complete the arrival card details through the Thailand Digital Arrival Card System before check-in. Immigration counters will be fully staffed during peak arrival hours, with officers deployed to manage crowd flow at terminal entrances.

So again, the Immigration Authorities, Tourism at Sports Ministry Authorities here in Thailand are going out of their way to accommodate folks who are stranded due to this. Again I think the template to look at from the standpoint of how is this going to be handled is COVID and I expect we are going to see things happening in a much more streamlined way than we saw some five years ago. Wow, it's been that long, that's really wild. But yeah, for all my problems and things with COVID, again at that time Thai Officials did try to go out of their way to keep people in status at the time, but it was less streamlined. Again I remember reading, doing various videos where one Immigration set of folks would say one thing one day, and then the next day would be completely turned around. At the end of the day it was kind of handled in an ad hoc manner. It looks like this time around, officials here in Thailand are trying to do this in a much more efficient, straightforward way which I again I think is laudable as well. That said, measures are in place to deal with the folks who are stranded and if this becomes a prolonged problem - as the title of the video notes - it looks like it could go all the way up to the Cabinet to see any further resolution regarding matters pertaining to stranded folks here in the Kingdom of Thailand.