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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawVisa NewsIs This Just the Beginning of a New Thai Immigration System?

Is This Just the Beginning of a New Thai Immigration System?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Immigration System generally. 

Every once in a while I like to make a video where, for lack of a better term I editorialize on what is going on within the system.  I have had a lot of folks here recently in the context of TM30s or the new rules regarding Insurance and Retirement Visa status, certain things involving Work Permit and Business Visa policy. I have had people ask me, "What is going on?"  "Why is it so fundamentally changing?" 

There was a recent article from the Thaiger, the thaiger.com.  The article is titled: Thai Immigration Chief Warns Law-breaking Foreigners This is Just the Start. To quote directly from that article. "The Chief of Thai Immigration Lieutenant General Sompong Chingduang, also known as "Big Oud", because apparently the Head of Immigration has to have a nickname starting with "Big" apparently, is warning foreigners breaking the law in the country that the latest crackdown is "just the beginning". So I thought this was interesting and I urge those who are watching this video to go check out that article because there is a lot more in there. I just I just wanted to bring up this one thing. 

I do think that to some extent we are dealing with just the beginning of a new Thai Immigration System. As we have seen, the incorporation of biometrics has recently rather fundamentally changed the enforcement capability of the Immigration apparatus here in Thailand. I also think that moving forward we are going to see more developments wherein those biometric systems are going to be used to even further effect so I think that we may just be at the tip of the iceberg with respect to the enforcement capability associated with that. Also Immigration's paradigm has pretty fundamentally changed with respect to the notion that it is no longer really an administrative function but is also a law enforcement function as well. Couple that with the fact that overstay rules have changed relatively quickly. In the past 3-4 years we have seen the over stay rules come into effect wherein one can get blacklisted for overstaying for a long period of time in Thailand and I think it is safe to say that "yes, we are in the beginning of a new Thai Immigration system." 

That being said, I don't think moving forward we are going to see the rather fundamental shifts that we have seen the last two years. More what I think we are going to be seeing is just how effective Thai Immigration enforcement is moving forward, compared to times past.