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More Crackdowns and Immigration Enforcement Activities in Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today as the title suggests, we are going to be discussing the increasing frequency of crackdowns especially the recent “Operation X-Ray Foreigner” that has just occurred within the past few weeks of making this video. So just to go the headlines first and then I will get to sort of my take on all of this.

From April 26, 2018, Bangkok Post. Nationwide Raids Round up Illegal Foreigners. Quoting directly: “Police searched 118 locations nationwide, mostly international schools early Thursday morning and arrested 99 foreigners including Myanmar, Indian, German and Laos nationals”. Police Major General Surachate Hakparn, Deputy Commissioner of Tourist Police said. “The X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner Operation” targeted 118 premises, among them 74 International Schools. The most common charge against the arrested foreigners was overstaying visas. Most of those caught for this were from Myanmar, India or Germany”, the Police Major General said.

Quoting from another article in the Bangkok Post, this one on April 29, 2018. Headlined, Cops Bust Short Course Visa Scam. Quoting directly,Police are zeroing in on foreign criminals who enroll at language schools to obtain education visas so they can live in Thailand and commit crime. The move comes after romance scammers busted by police showed student visas to officers”.

Final article, Big Joke Having a Big Effect on Bangkok Transnational Crime as Thousands of Africans  Arrested. This is from thaivisa.com. Quoting directly, “Crime buster Surachate Hakparn has said that “police operations to rid the country of transnational criminals has already had a big effect on reducing crime of this sort in Bangkok” I think this is the important part. He said, that “in recent months the operations against illegal activities of foreigners in 1,024 cases have led to 4,000 arrests”. That is pretty significant numbers especially if you compare it to the past. So first things first, have a look at those articles directly. They get into some detail about the overall situation with respect to immigration and immigration enforcement here in the Kingdom. 

But that being said, the thing to take away from this is, immigration is not messing around and what I see here is there is going to be more of this. I think that this is going to receive more budgetary consideration in the future, I think you are going to see more raids, I think certain visa categories such as the ED visa, which we made a specific video on here recently and I urge those to go check that out, I think certain visa categories including marriage visas, as there has been a spate of scams involving marriage visas. What I am basically trying to get at is there are certain categories which are going to be more scrutinized than they were in the past even if you actually have a non-immigrant visa and moreover, also immigration officers are looking at places that they used to not look; Internationals schools for example, schools generally. They are raiding more premises. They consider this a priority issue. I think they have made a connection, sort of paradigmatically, within the various agencies that deal with law enforcement and immigration enforcement and I think that they have come to the conclusion that there is a correlation between those that overstay and those that commit crimes here in the Kingdom of Thailand the result being that they are kind of viewing these immigration raids  less  as sort of a regulatory endeavor and more as a law enforcement endeavor and for that reason I think it is very probable to think that in the future we can foresee more of these raids with more frequency and more arrests  Those who are not in proper visa status here in the Kingdom and wish to stay long term are strongly advised to get their visa situation sorted, get their long term visa planned that is going to operate within the bounds of the law, and is not going to simply be a travel document that is going to provide a pretext for being in the country. You need a valid reason to be in the Kingdom and you need valid travel documents to remain here.