Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well I'm discussing Visas broadly here, but more to the point, this is about third country nationals. Now what is that? That means you are not from the country where you are processing a Visa, so you are looking to process a Visa through an Embassy in a country that you don't hail from; it's not your country of passport if you will, your country of nationality. You're a third country national. We see this a fair bit especially involving Lao passport holders, Myanmar passport holders processing through the US Embassy here in Bangkok. In the past you would see the occasional Cambodian, but for the most part, those types of cases process - I never saw a lot of Cambodians process out of Thailand. Going back into the old days there was a time when they could only be processed out of Thailand, but since I have been here some nearly 20 years, I mostly see Lao and Myanmar passport holders when we are talking about third country nationals here in Thailand. 

Now one thing to bear in mind, as a general rule, the Trump Administration has downplayed if you will or curtailed greatly the number of third country nationals that are going to be able to process through a given Embassy. The prevailing paradigm is right now, that you need to process through the country you come from. Now that said, if you live in a third country genuinely, and can show residence, consular jurisdiction may be granted, but again, it depends on the specific facts in the underlying case. Here recently, we've seen third country nationals being issued 221(g) refusals in light of Trump's recent Visa "Pause". So these 221(g)s are sort of issued, but they are issued in sort of a nonsensical manner insofar as they say, "well it's a 221(g) based on the Public Charge Rule basically; we think you're going to go on welfare, possibly go on welfare in the United States", but then there is no further analysis. It just sort of trails off. That said procedurally the 221(g) - again we're talking about 221(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act - which states the Consular Officer can refuse to issue a Visa until they are satisfied that all necessary requirements have been met. So oftentimes, we will see a 221(g) issued here in Thailand where they will say bring us back this document, and then oftentimes once that is remedied, the visa itself will be issued.

The question now for third country nationals - in light of this Trump Visa pause - is whether or not it's even possible to remedy the 221(g) which then sort of calls into question the usage of it procedurally because if there is no remedy, then what are we doing? It is sort of disingenuous. That said, it remains to be seen how this plays out, so we'll certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.