Integrity Legal - Law Firm in Bangkok | Bangkok Lawyer | Legal Services Thailand Back to
Integrity Legal

Legal Services & Resources 

Up to date legal information pertaining to Thai, American, & International Law.

Contact us: +66 2-266 3698

info@integrity-legal.com

ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawVisa NewsOverstaying Foreigners Should Leave Thailand Immediately

Overstaying Foreigners Should Leave Thailand Immediately

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing over stay in Thailand and we are discussing a recently announced the deadline which was announced in multiple press organs throughout the Kingdom within the recent weeks; within recent days of the filming of this video. It will come due on October 9th. It was made October 9th, the deadline will then come up November 8th or 9th, 2018. I am going to go into the specifics of this really quickly.

For those who watching this video if you are currently on overstay or looks like you are going to go into overstay sometime October/November, 2018, get out of the country; get your status regularized and come back in. Come back not in overstay. I don't think they are messing around with respect to these warnings. This reminds me a lot of when they promulgated rules with respect to the blacklisting in the Kingdom. Basically they gave everyone ample warning to go ahead and get themselves out of the country, get their status regularized and come back in so that one could, or those to which this pertained to could go ahead and get their status regularized and could remain in lawful status in the Kingdom. This is being done specifically to target over stayers and this is coming hot on the heels of changes with respect to the overall paradigm at immigration, enforcement policies at immigration, the ongoing raids through the X-ray Outlaw Foreigner raids, the Operation Zero Overstay raids which are already beginning as I get to with another video on this channel. Overall what we are looking at here is a really serious concerted proactive effort to discourage over stayers and to basically deal with the issue of overstay, in my opinion possibly in one fell swoop. Again it reminds me of the time when they basically announced changes to the blacklisting rules with enough time for folks who those rules might pertain to, to get out of the country and get themselves sorted out. 

A recent article from The Chiang Rai times, chiangraitimes.com, the article is titled Thailand's Immigration Given 1 month to Arrest and Deport Thousands of Foreigners. Quoting directly, "Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan yesterday instructed Police Major General Surachate Hakpal , Thailand's Acting Immigration Bureau Chief to crackdown on foreigners overstaying their visas or using Thailand as a safe haven for criminal activities". Quoting further, "The Immigration Bureau was ordered to strictly enforce the law, weed out foreigners without visas and over staying their visas and deport them within one month. It was told to check whether foreigners doing business here were working in professions that were legally reserved for Thais." There is another video on this channel where we get into that specifically but moving forward specifically with the issue of this overstay. In another article from the Bangkok Post, October 9th, 2018 titled Airport Officers Transferred over Bribes, quoting directly from that article, “Lieutenant General Kongcheep added the foreign nationals’ identity database has been integrated within the immigration airports to help identify more quickly those who might pose a threat to National Security. Meanwhile Police Major General Surachate announced Immigration Bureau will begin to deport visa over stayers of which there are at least 40,000 within a month”; so within a month, they are noting this. Again, October 9th is the operative date for these notations. 

Finally another article published in the Thai Thaiger, (spelled t h a i g e r) the thaiger.com, the article is entitled Illegal Foreigners on Notice: 30 Day Crackdown. Quoting directly, “The Immigration Bureau has been given a month to go after thousands of  foreigners and are just believed involved in criminal activities Thai Deputy P M and Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan  yesterday instructed Immigration Bureau to crack down on foreigners overstaying their visas. The Immigration Bureau was told to strictly enforce the law and deport them within one month.” Again if you can notice an ongoing theme within multiple different press releases; one month is the operative time frame here, so in order to understand this better, what is going on? They are clearly going to make a proactive and concerted effort to round up and deport over stayers as within the kingdom. They have delineated a time frame so all of these publications came out on or around October 9th and they noted a 30-day timeframe, a 1 month time frame under which over stayers were going to be looked for and under which they are going to be proactively pursued and upon their arrest, they are going to be deported. Again I can't stress this enough and I don't mean to belabor the point, but this reminds me a lot of when they changed the blacklist rules and that was something of a sea change in the Kingdom and it resulted in a lot of people getting kicked out of the country. I can see this going the exact same way. Moreover, as noted in one of those articles, they're going to be integrating certain aspects of the identity database and in another article on this channel we go into the identity database such as PBIX, and APPS as well. These acronyms have certain meanings but basically the long and the short of it is they are more proactively monitoring foreigners and the Kingdom, they have a better idea of who is on overstay. This stuff is digitized now. It is not all on paper format so it is getting to be nearly impossible to go ahead and evade the enforcement capabilities of the Immigration Authorities here in the Kingdom.

So the things to take away from this videos, they are going to start a serious round of what looks like raids and deportations. It sounds like it's going to pertain to a lot of people. I have heard the number bandied about of 40,000 and I think it is going to happen within the next 30 days. So they have put people on notice, they have noted their abilities. We have seen what they can do in the past. Those who this pertains to, those who currently are  in overstay, those who may fall into over stay within the next 30 days, or 30 days from October 9th, let's be clear on that; 30 days from October 9th; those who this pertains to, probably a good idea ahead and get out of the country. That will at least forestall being detained if and when this comes about, and go ahead and get yourself into proper visa status, get your visa status sorted out, so that moving forward this isn't an issue; especially for those who want to live in the Kingdom on a long-term basis.