Transcript of the above video:

I get this question a lot. We get a lot of correspondence, people sometimes will just send us an email that says: "What are fees to get a Visa to the United States? What are your fees to get a Visa to Thailand?"

My answer to do that is: "I don't know." I don't know what your situation is, I don't know where you are from, I don't know what the situation of the applicant for the visa is for example in the context of Fiancé Visas to the United States or Marriage Visas to the United States; I don't know what your criminal record is; I don't know what your financial history is. I would argue there never really was an era of "one size fits all” Immigration Fees where it was just "okay, is this kind of fee." Now at one time I was able to bifurcate things especially in a US Immigration context, I could say "okay this is a routine case, this is a non-routine case". With the way Immigration has gone, especially in the last couple of years, even that I have to dig into things again like criminal history for both or either party; things like Financial records for either or both parties. These things more and more for whatever reason especially in the US context, Immigration has become far more obtuse. In a Thai context as we have discussed in other videos, the paradigm has shifted. We have gone from an administrative paradigm to a law enforcement paradigm. Also it is not simply a matter of just filling out some paperwork, there is an adjudication now in many cases involving Visas especially Long-Term Visas for the Kingdom of Thailand.

So this notion that you can just contact somebody and frankly, I think you should be a little bit wary, a little bit cautious these days with anybody who you contact that you say "What's your fee to do this?" and they know nothing about you and they just say "oh it costs this" because right now even in Thailand, the rules and regulations regarding visas will vary depending on the country of origin. Once you get here depending on your circumstances, if you want to do something like a conversion, if it is even possible or an extension, again it is going to vary depending on the circumstances in the given moment and in the given place. Again as we have noted in other videos, different Provincial Immigration Authorities have different sort of internal administrative rules. 

So, this notion of a one size fits-all visa fee out there in really any context, I just don't think is a paradigm that is particularly reflective of the reality on the ground in the Immigration realm at this time.