Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thailand Pass. I decided to make this video after reading a recent article in ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com. The article is titled: On dying in Thailand; and going from hero to zero. Quite honestly, I urge folks who are watching this video to read that article. There is a lot going on in there, it is a rather interesting article but a tiny little excerpt from it is what caused me to make this video. It really doesn't have a huge bearing on the overall thrust of the main article. It was just sort of set off hand but I thought it was worth pointing it out, citing this because it caused me to think about a few things associated with the Thailand Pass process. 

The Thailand Pass for those who are unaware used to be called a Certificate of Entry to get into Thailand. We have been dealing with this regime, the Emergency Decree regime associated with Thai Immigration; we have been dealing with that since March 2020. Initially it was called a Certificate of Entry. They have somewhat streamlined the process; they somewhat changed it a little bit, not a lot, and then they renamed it the Thailand Pass. So any foreign national especially who wants to come to Thailand in any kind of status, Visa exempt, some sort of Visa, Permanent Residence for example, still have to go ahead and deal with the Thailand Pass process. But again this is a title on: Dying in Thailand; and going from hero to zero, ASEAN NOW, aseannow.com, the excerpt quoting directly: "As always the week on ASEAN NOW was a brilliant mixture of the touching, the absurd and the utterly predictable, reminding those of us lucky enough to live in the Kingdom why we are here and why so many are doing a PhD in "Thailand Pass Studies" just to visit." I think what the author is getting at, again this is just an excerpt from an article which is largely on a kind of a different topic and I thought the article was quite good but I think what the author here is saying or they are saying is right now it seems like you have to go out and practically get a PhD in "Thailand Pass Studies" to get into Thailand. You have to learn how to deal with the system, navigate yourself through it etc. 

I would say you don't have to do that if you don't want. We have been doing Certificates of Entry since they began. I think we got one of the first three that was even issued to get somebody into Thailand. We have got Thai Attorneys here on our staff that are doing Immigration work daily that deal with Thailand Pass all the time. Obviously, this video to an extent has a promotional aspect but I am really not bringing it up for that reason exclusively. One of the reasons I am bringing it up is because I kind of look at Immigration Law in both a US context or a Thai context, I look at it especially from a foreigner perspective as something akin to doing one's taxes. Somebody can do their own taxes; it is certainly possible to do your own taxes for example in the United States and some people opt to hire somebody to do their taxes and just get it filed. I kind of look at the same thing with this notion of a PhD in "Thailand Pass Studies". Yeah, you can sit around if you want and try to work out how to deal with the whole system and frankly I think the system lacks a lot of things to be desired especially from an efficiency standpoint but yeah folks can try to learn to do it on their own or if they opt to, yeah you can hire somebody to just you know assist you in getting you through it and you don't have to learn every little thing about the Thailand Pass System. I look at it again in the Immigration context yeah in theory folks and there are some cases where this isn't possible, but most folks can probably do a K-1 Visa on their own, a Visa petition for a fiancée but I have often found a lot of these folks, when I talk to them especially if they have done it once or they are looking at it, a lot of folks will just tell me they are like “yeah I get it, I could probably do it on my own but frankly I just want somebody who knows how this works and I can just get it on file and move the thing through rather than try and again get a PhD in getting a Fiancé Visa, I would just rather have somebody do it for me”. Again it is all individual choice. People can choose to do it however they want but understand it is not a requirement that you learn everything there is to know about the Thailand Pass. If you need help dealing with it we are certainly on hand and we have advised and assisted a number of clients in processing Thailand Passes since it was transitioned over from Certificate of Entry and we dealt with a number of tickets of Entry up to that point.