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Thai Immigration Doesn't Care About What You Want

Transcript of the above video:

The title of this video may sound blunt; there's a sister video to this video which we made regarding US Immigration and the reason I am making this video, it is not to be blunt and it is not to be coarse, if you will. I am not trying to be obstinate in making this video. 

What I want people to take away from this video is some perspective and insight in how Immigration apparatus works be it Thailand in this case, or the United States; really any Immigration apparatus around the world. That apparatus fundamentally knows what you want and what you want is the Visa you are seeking. Now whether or not they are going to give it is a matter for an adjudication. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. It depends on circumstances. I oftentimes will see, especially depending on the Consulate where someone is applying for a visa, they will say, ”Oh, it takes two days to process. Can we get it to move faster?" No, probably not. Thai Immigration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Officers that are stationed outside of Thailand, in really extenuating circumstances, sure, it may be possible to expedite something, but if a Thai Consulate has a two or three-day processing time or in some cases a couple of weeks' standard processing time, that is not really going to change.  They have it there for a reason; probably due to the fact they have a queue, they have a line of people that are ahead of you and they have to process those through on a first-come first-serve basis. Now the other thing I see a lot is people who they come in to Thailand, and they have a Visa and then they want to leave but they don't want to. I see this a lot in the context of extensions here in the Kingdom, for example, a Business Visa Extension. One needs to arrive in the Kingdom be in Business Visa status, then in order to extend you have to file an extension. You get a 30-day stamp and then you have to basically be back on the day that that 30 days is up to get that 11 months tacked on to the Visa status once that review is up. Thai Immigration doesn't really care about your schedule. If you get there a day later, okay and I have seen this happen too where  people will say, "Can we do this a couple of days early?"  "No!" The reason again for this, especially Bangkok immigration Division 1, has a tremendous backlog. Again, and I don't mean to be sound like an apologist for this. In many ways I think that the system can be improved. But that being stated, the system is what it is and we have to deal with it as it is and take it as it comes.

The thing to take away from this video is for example in this extension, to proceed further I see people that say "can I do it a couple of days early?"  No, they are not going to allow that because they have other people that have to process that day. "Can I do it a day late?" "No, because you fell out of status." If you are abroad and you come back in and you don't have a re-entry permit to maintain your B status, you will fall out of status. 

The bluntness of the title of this video is meant to convey the bluntness that the system sometimes can project because they simply have a set of protocols they need to follow in order to adjudicate a Visa matter. One's tangential plans if you will, are largely of no concern to the Immigration apparatus here and those that are looking to extend their status or maintain long-term status in the Kingdom just need to come to grips with that and act accordingly and also understanding they need to plan ahead and actually in some cases plan around their Immigration obligations if you will, in order to maintain their status here in the Kingdom.