Transcript of the above video: 

What we are talking about here today is multi-jurisdictional policy making with regard to Immigration and Visa policies. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Visa differences impede progress towards a Schengen-style south east Asia. Quoting directly: "Schengen style visa-free travel in practice means seamless travel through the signatory countries without the burden of undue passport inspection." Well it could mean that. That's the way the EU kind of did it. I am not so sure that people are sitting around these days looking at the EU as any major model for effective, efficient and quite honestly commonsensical migration, so let's just leave it at that. Quoting further: "The concept creates a much more welcoming environment for tourists by simplifying the multi-entry process by air, sea and land. Given the hesitancy of ASEAN in agreeing any major policy changes and its history of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of member states, a joint Visa plan by Thailand and her neighbours remains a worthy dream under discussion since 2010. ASEAN will sleep on it." 

Yeah I have discussed this in other videos. At the end of the day, the jurisdictions here in ASEAN are wildly different in many ways. Their legal systems may be substantially different: for example they may have Common Law backgrounds whereas others may have Civil Law backgrounds; some of them may have been subjects of colonization while others have not; others of them have significant issues pertaining to religious factors that factor into a public discourse in certain jurisdictions. There is a lot of differentiation; there are a lot of variables when you look at the different countries in the ASEAN block. 

As I have discussed in other videos, I also think that because of the influx of foreign tourism for decades, especially here to Thailand, but also Malaysia, the Philippines, even Vietnam and to a lesser extent Cambodia, even Laos to some extent, Singapore obviously and Indonesia as well, all of these different countries responded in different ways and built their own complex Immigration Systems. These systems don't have a tendency to cooperate well and beyond even that, it is somewhat antithetical to their mandate to cooperate well. What do I mean? Well Immigration has an administrative function, law enforcement function, and then, and this is something people don't talk about very much, it also has a national security function. Because at the end of the day keeping out foreign hordes from a given jurisdiction should be something that the state should be dealing with. Now as we see along the American Southern Border, it's not exactly what they are doing these days and unfortunately that is an example of a scenario that caused literally the Western Roman Empire to fall; I am going to leave that aside.

Go back here to this area of the world, this region, while I think that there may be something to the notion of some sort of Pan-ASEAN Visa, and maybe just sort of a Visa with, again this Schengen notion that ASEAN becomes magically borderless effectively, I think that's a pipe dream, I don't think that's happening any time soon. But maybe sort of a unified Visa structure perhaps. I suspect that the kernel for that will begin with a few countries who create some sort of multi-jurisdictional visa and then it will expand from there. That said, I would not hold my breath as again as previously noted, I don't expect this to be happening anytime soon.