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Improved Immigration Enforcement and Visa Blacklisting in Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

As the title to this video suggests, we are going to be specifically discussing The Blacklist here in Thailand and more importantly I'm going to be discussing, in rather some detail, some recent developments which came to my attention which lead me to believe that there is going to be increasingly effective enforcement measures being put into place by Immigration Authorities here in Thailand which are going to be able to better foresee those who are coming into the Kingdom or trying to come into the Kingdom who have been previously expelled from the Kingdom and I think we are going to see a much more comprehensive database of those who are being blacklisted here in the Kingdom.

In a recent article entitled Big Joke Having a Big Effect on Bangkok Transnational Crime has thousands of Africans Arrested. This was on thaivisa.com, it was 2018,  April 26th. There was an interesting small thing I noticed within here which said "Manager reported that DNA was taken from the suspects in order to ensure they would not be able to come back to Thailand after being deported and blacklisted." Long story short, there was an immigration raid on various premises as part of the X-Ray Operation Outlaw Foreigner Program that is being undertaken by immigration authorities but what was interesting is that there was a manager that was apparently at one of these premises who noted that the Immigration Authorities were taking DNA samples apparently, DNA samples of some sort and I will get to the reasons why I think this is important shortly. In another article from the Bangkok Post entitled Cops Bust Short Course Visa Scam April 29th, 2018, there was some information of particular interest. "He said his bureau has heightened measures to screen people at airports and border checkpoints particularly for individuals who leave and re-enter Thailand overland to renew their visa exempt status on so-called Visa runs. These foreigners will be stopped and asked to apply for the appropriate visas he noted. According to Police Colonel Choengron Rimpadi, the Immigration Bureau will begin checking the fingerprints of those entering via international airports so that they can be compared with those on the Blacklist. A facial recognition of facial recognition system will also be used to determine whether people's facial faces match with those in their passports he said. What do you need to take away from this? First of all they are increasingly serious about blacklisting foreigners who are operating outside of status here in the Kingdom. In fact they are even going so far as going after those that they believe are only utilizing certain types of non-immigrant visas as a pretext, for example ED visas. There is another video on this channel we just put up which specifically discusses ED visas and how they are being more scrutinized than in the past. But the things take away from this. DNA, facial recognition, fingerprinting, all of these things clearly are being utilized in conglomeration with each other in order to create a more effective apparatus for enforcing immigration laws and for making certain that those who have been blacklisted and/and or deported from the Kingdom are basically kept out. So again facial recognition technology, fingerprint technology, and probably a database of all of the above. Apparently DNA as well, although I think that that may be more further afield than fingerprints and facial recognition technology but that being said what does all this add up to in the aggregate? It adds up to the fact that Immigration Authorities are very, very serious about Thai immigration law. They’re getting more serious. There's more crackdowns. The frequency of crackdowns are  just becoming closer together and I think that we are going to see more budgetary considerations for immigration enforcement activities as I believe it is more and more being viewed as a species of law enforcement activity; not just as some sort of regulatory endeavor having to do with things like visas and immigration regulations. 

Finally it is clear to me that they are undertaking to utilize more up-to-date methodologies in their enforcement  endeavors to go ahead and find those folks who are out of status, deal with them and keep them out of the country.