Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Immigration discretion. We are discussing the notion that it is kind of "receding". What are we talking about here? Well, Thai Immigration has been granted a great deal of discretion in the past couple of years under the current circumstances, especially in light of the fact that there were really extenuating circumstances where people could not easily travel in and out of Thailand and Thai Immigration was given a great deal of discretion to facilitate people, specifically foreigners remaining in lawful status here in Thailand. A perfect example of this is the so-called COVID Visa where people could get an extension based on just the fact that they couldn't get out of the country or travel was heavily restricted. 

I think that is going away; I think that has fallen by the wayside. As we ease, as things start to open up I think it is increasingly likely we are going to see Thai Immigration in a place where they are not going to be doing those kind of discretionary findings and they are going to be moving back to the paradigm they had Pre-COVID which was "Look, if you want another type of Non-Immigrant Visa or if you want some kind of extended status, you need to leave and come back in". These Non-immigrant categories and these Tourist Visa categories, they are not meant to stay in Thailand for long periods of time under normal circumstances. They are meant for short stays either as tourists or non-immigrants and by short stay it could be as long as a year at a time but it was yearly intervals, it wasn't in perpetuity for lack of a better term. So something to bear in mind. 

I am not saying this is happening right now but this is just more an overarching trend that I am kind of feeling in the wind right now that we are going to see less and less discretion being exercised in-country and probably the presumption that you need to leave the country is going to arise. That doesn't mean to necessarily presume that because under certain circumstances maybe it is possible to get a favourable exercise of discretion from a Thai Immigration Officer to allow for a conversion in-country, an extension in-country, something of this nature, but bear in mind that there are a number of rules that were in place before all this came down and they have been sort of put on hold but it is prudent to presume that they are probably coming back and they are probably coming back as the rest of this year progresses.