Transcript of the above video: 

I made a video a couple of weeks back where I explained, hey, we are seeing a major paradigm shift within Thai Immigration, just within sort of the National Security apparatus of Thailand, and Immigration has a component in this paradigm shift and we are seeing it play out in real time. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Border checks tightened. Quoting directly: "Thailand has tightened screening measures for Cambodian nationals entering Thailand under the Visa-free scheme and stepped up checks on certain groups of foreign travellers deemed as "posing a risk" amid growing security concerns linked to the Thai-Cambodian Border conflict." 

So okay, first thing to understand, we have this border conflict going on. It has escalated; it's unfortunate for everyone involved, but it's happening, so okay we have that in the background. Now one would expect there would be at least some level of heightened scrutiny associated with Cambodians coming into Thailand, and for that matter, Thais going into Cambodia, which that is kind of expected. That said, what we're seeing in this situation is basically the situation of them scrutinizing even more than that, so let's dig further. Quoting directly: "The move followed intelligence reports that Cambodian spies and mercenaries" - and "mercenary" seems to be one of the sort of the key points here, is there seems to be concern that foreign soldiers of fortune might get involved here and they may not necessarily be from Cambodia; that seems to be the thrust of it. 

I urge those who are watching this video, go check out Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, Border checks tightened. That said, quoting further: "Spies and mercenaries are allegedly infiltrating Thai territory to carry out sabotage in the country's inner areas. Prime Minister Anutin on Monday convened an emergency meeting with National Security Council Secretary-General Chatchai Bangchuad at Government House to address escalating concerns along the Thai-Cambodian border, including reports of espionage and mercenaries." Quoting further: "Pol. Gen. Choengron Rimphadee, Deputy Commissioner and spokesman of the Immigration Bureau, said that since the latest wave of clashes erupted along the Thai-Cambodian border, commercial flights between the two countries have continued to operate normally." That's important to point out. There is still continuing back and forth between Bangkok for example and Phnom Penh, there are flights back and forth; that's possible notwithstanding the border dispute. And again, part of this set of circumstances if you will is causing folks to be somewhat concerned about Immigration protocols on the basis that "hey we might inadvertently let someone in who has ill-designs toward Thailand", and quite frankly, they should be concerned about that under these circumstances, and I'm glad Immigration as well as the relevant authorities going all the way up to the Prime Minister, are addressing this. That said, quoting further: "This has raised security concerns, and at last Thursday's meeting of Heads of Immigration checkpoints at five international airports, stricter screening measures were imposed on certain groups of foreign nationals who may pose a national security threat." I want to read this again. "Five international airports, stricter screening measures were imposed on certain groups." 

As we know, and if you've been following this channel for a prolonged period of time, if you go back to Trump's first term, I talked about this phenomenon during the so-called Muslim ban. They banned like nine countries from being able to travel to the United States and they put all sorts of heightened scrutiny associated with visas and things to other countries and those countries as well. And as I said at the time, those who were on board with that needed to sort of be aware that these things kind of bleed out if you will, they have a tendency "mission creep" if you will, can sort of set in and while it may have been intentionally intended for a narrow subset of people to be affected by a certain policy - in the case of the Trump Muslim Ban in the first term - in this case here, we don't know yet, it's not a foregone conclusion but I think it may be safe to infer or look at it as if it might be a possibility that we could start to see this heightened scrutiny being applied more broadly and to many nationalities, not just for example Cambodians or people that are suspected of being some sort of surreptitious ne'er do well trying to do something; again they could be a mercenary, they could be whatever, a spy trying to do something in Thailand untoward. So again, while this may look like it's initially only going to focus on a narrow subset of folks, it could have ramifications broadly. I think that's important to point out. Thai said, quoting further: “These measures are focused on two groups: Cambodian Nationals entering Thailand by air under the Visa-free scheme at a time when hostilities between the two countries have escalated, and suspected mercenaries from parts of Eastern Europe and upper Asia.” Again, I don't know exactly what that means but I do know that they are, again there's heightened scrutiny and now they are looking at possibly Eastern Europeans, possibly folks from sort of the greater Eurasia land mass - exactly where hard to tell. That said, again I think the more pertinent point, not really who they are looking at, people can sit around and surmise, “are they really concerned a bunch of Bulgarians are going to come to Thailand and do something?” I don't know, and I don't mean to take this lightly. Look at this point we are in a war footing here in Thailand. I get we have to do what we have to do. The point is again, they say okay, we're only looking at possible mercenaries or saboteurs or something that are sort of a Cambodian background. Then they are saying okay, "well now we're kind of looking at Eastern Europeans and elsewhere in Asia."

Again, you can see just from the outset, this has broad ramifications. What does this mean for standard travellers? Well just expect the possibility of heightened scrutiny at various immigration checkpoints, not only at airports, but also presumably at other borders, land and sea, here in the Kingdom of Thailand.