Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing YouTubers discussing Thai Immigration Policy. Now this is going to seem like a strange, maybe even somebody would argue it is a hypocritical video, I don't think it's hypocritical at all. Look I kind of backed into YouTube in a very real sense. We started making these videos for informational purposes. Obviously they have a promotional element insofar as we have the firm's name and everything on these videos but anybody that has watched me for any number of years knows, I mean we put out a lot of free information, we put up a lot of information designed to inform people and give them the most up to date; during COVID, we were trying to give the most up-to-date information we could just so people understood what was going on. I have no problem quite honestly with other YouTubers; I never intended to be a YouTuber; it has been fascinating to watch the meteoric rise of some YouTubers, some I cannot figure out what the attraction is but none of my business, different people have different tastes and quite honestly this content has never really changed. I mean we're just sitting here making this channel talking about legal issues, what we have always done. Legal issues, Immigration issues both in the US context and the Thai context, probably isn't going to change, you are probably going to see me doing these until I have my inevitable coronary one day and then you won't see me anymore. 

But the point of the video is yeah I have seen, I've actually not seen I just have heard this anecdotally and I didn't even really care to go look up any of these videos where people are talking about it but various people over the last week have said "oh somebody on YouTube made a video that says in one case it was 'you never need to worry about the Tourist Visa!' and I said 'well you do'. I was talking to a person and I said 'yeah, you do'. Somebody else said 'oh somebody got on YouTube and said you don't need work authorization to do XYZ', I can't even remember the fact pattern they were talking there. The long and the short of it is we have discussed it at length if you are a foreign national in Thailand and you are looking to work in Thailand, and by the way the definition of work is very, very broad, broad to the point of being virtually anything. Done the videos on that, the definition of work in Thailand. Go to the archive section or the resources section of info.co.th and you can do the search function and just search for ‘definition of work’ or just click into the search function of our YouTube channel and search definition of work you will get the video where work is defined very, very broadly. 

On the topic of Immigration, especially with the notion of Tourist Visas, apparently and again this was relayed to me second hand, somebody was saying 'oh I went through an Immigration checkpoint, I talked to the Immigration Officer and they said no don't even worry about it, we want to encourage tourism'. A couple of things going on there. First off, Immigration Officers sitting at an Immigration checkpoint where they have already adjudicated you are okay to enter, they want you to move along; they are probably not going to be talking to you deeply about the underlying policy thinking on the Thai Visa Exemption Stamp protocols or the Thai Tourist Visa protocols, so let's start there. Secondly, we have done videos ourselves where we saw very reputable publications quoting Immigration Officers, this is going back into the pandemic, quoting Immigration Officers who were saying, 'oh the Emergency Decree is coming to an end', and then lo and behold, it didn't happen. If it's not an official announcement from Thai Immigration or it's not in the Thai Immigration law or regulations, it is probably not a good idea to bank on it. Now again, I would say it's not an unfair statement to say the presently Thai immigration is going to be more encouraging of Tourism than usual because we are coming off of a rather horrendous couple of years for the Tourism Sector and the Immigration apparatus has probably been directed to ‘hey where possible, try to encourage tourists to come in as much as possible’. That said, that's not a Policy change. Again it's clear Immigration Policy in Thailand, they do not want people living in Thailand long term using Tourist Visas so just because an Immigration Officer at an Immigration checkpoint says 'oh hey it is not a big deal to deal with this Visa issue', that's not something I think you are going to want to take to the bank, we have seen it many, many times. 

So the thing to take away from this video, I am not trying to call out a bunch of YouTubers; I am not trying to get in some kind of Flame War out there. Recognize that when you are watching folks who are lay people that are YouTubers that are talking about Thai Immigration and let me also be clear and this isn't to toot my own horn, or the firm's horn or anything, we do this every day. If you can't tell from the tone of my voice, I am pretty tired out just after the first day of coming back from Thai New Year, I am pretty tired out just dealing with Thai Immigration matters within the first 8 hours of having come back off the Thai New Year, I'm pretty tired, just dealing with Thai Immigration, US Immigration stuff that's come up just in that time period not to mention the case load we have on more standard cases. Long story short, again this isn't meant to sort of denigrate YouTubers or anything of that nature nor to get into any kind of fight, nor to say I am the end all be all, I am not. I stood corrected before, I am happy to do it again but long story short yeah somebody that just flew in here once and sort of says 'oh somebody at the airport told me that all is well, you never have to worry about coming in on a Visa exemption stamp', that's a bad thing to listen to. That is not based on what's really happening here and those who base their decisions on that, you are probably going to find that you're going to have some problems down the road. That being said, I really do think it is a good thing that YouTubers convey their individual experiences as long as the viewers out there in the world realize and take those for what they are, individual experiences, not a sort of unified theory of how the Thai Immigration system works.