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Updates Regarding Immigration Crackdowns in Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are going to be discussing recent crackdowns here in Bangkok proper, as well as sort of Thailand more generally. But basically this is sort of a continuation of what's becoming kind of a clearly overarching theme here in the Kingdom which is, Thai Immigration Police are serious about cracking down on over stayers, visa violators, illegal entrants and those who are using visas pretextually to be here for nefarious purposes.

Recent articles, both of these are coming from the Nation, that is nationmultimedia.com.  First one posted June 1st, 2018, title: “44 Foreigners Arrested in Ongoing Tourist Police Crackdowns”. Quoting directly: "A multi force raid has arrested another 44 foreigners in a weekly use of police resources that continues to mainly discover people overstaying their visas or lacking an entry permit to Thailand",  and I want to come back to the lack of entry permits to Thailand later on in this video. "Raids included 3 international schools, 2 language schools and 30 normal schools". As noted in a prior video specific to education visas on this channel, and I urge those who are watching this video to go check that out, it has become clear that Thai Immigration Authorities are increasingly viewing those who are in language schools especially, but schools in general, while maintaining a Thai ED Visa with some degree of skepticism. Now it would appear that they are not particularly singling out any one particular type or place but simply making rather random inspections with respect to checking those who have Education Visas. Quoting further he said "11 people were charged with overstaying their visas; another 31 were charged with being in the Kingdom without a visa." Now going back to that being in the Kingdom without a permit issued. What are we talking about here? Well quite literally we are talking about total illegal entrance. People who have come into the country, entered the country illegally, they did not do so, presumably, in passing through an Immigration checkpoint and they just got into the country. These folks, the Thai Immigration Police consider to be pretty bad actors. They are going to be looking for those folks more than anybody.  Over stayers are obviously something that they have made a bigger issue of here recently. I just completed a video regarding the issue of over stayers here in the Kingdom of Thailand, especially with respect to minor over stayers as in the Kingdom, and I urge those who are interested in the overstaying aspect to check out that video directly.

The thing to take away from this video is:

A. The crackdowns are occurring, and

B. I think one thing to notice is they are finding people who have entered the country without any type of visa and presumably without passing through any type of checkpoint.

That would be a problem in virtually any jurisdiction that I can think of, so this is not something that is sort of targeting any group. The group that it is targeting is people entering the country illegally. It has kind of come to my attention that Immigration Police have especially began doing this crackdown process with more zealousness based on a presumption that those who are entering the Kingdom illegally or remaining in the Kingdom illegally are probably more likely to commit illegal acts in the Kingdom. Now whether or not that is a correlation or causation there, that is an issue for a maybe another analysis or just maybe not even within the bailiwick of these videos, but it seems to be the Paradigm that is being held by Immigration Authorities so if they are holding that paradigm, it is pretty safe to assume that it is good to infer that they are going to operate based on that paradigm.

Following up with another article in the Nation, this one posted June 3rd, and this is more following up in the vein associating with illegal over stayers or illegal entrants with possible criminals in other areas of the law. Again nationmultimedia.com, the title: “Six Foreigners, Two Thai Women Arrested in Alleged Romance Scam”. Quoting directly from the article: "Tourist police have arrested six foreigners and two Thai women for allegedly deceiving Thai women into wiring them money in a suspected romance scam.” Quoting further “The six foreigners were also found to have overstayed their visas.” I urge those who are watching this video please check out this, there is a lot more that article, there is a lot more to the other article and you can glean some further nuance out of the article itself. What I want folks to take away from this video is first of all Immigration Police are very keen on rounding up illegals and over stayers, illegal entrants and over stayers. They are also very keen on finding folks who are foreigners who are committing crimes in the Kingdom and there seems to have been a correlation that has been created or at least created within the analysis of Immigration Authorities is that those who are willing to overstay or those who are willing to enter illegally are also probably going to be willing to commit crimes here in the Kingdom. So I think that it is pretty safe to assume that this is becoming more of a general, for lack of a better term, it is becoming more of a general law enforcement situation. They are viewing this more in terms of a general law enforcement rather than a sort of specialized regulatory non-compliance issue which in my opinion is sort of how Immigration matters were viewed in the past and because these things are being viewed in more like a mainstream law enforcement issue sort of capacity, I think we are going to see more of these crackdowns, I think we are going to see Immigration enforcement tightening up even more and I think that these headlines are not going to cease and we will keep you updated on this channel with further developments. I have done further videos with respect to sort of some general insights into policy with respect to Immigration here recently. I heard you to check out those videos on this channel as well.