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 NewsUpdate Regarding Thai Visas and Immigration

Update Regarding Thai Visas and Immigration

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are going to be discussing updates regarding Thai Visas and Immigration as of the time of the posting of this video.

One of the things that I find interesting in this past year is serious crackdowns have been undertaken by Thai Immigration Authorities and there has been another recent one that has come to my attention since the last one of these videos I did about a week, 10 days ago. But that being said, this time, in this update I actually want to go a little bit further into the statistics surrounding this and I also want to go into the numbers we are talking about with respect to deportations that have occurred as a result of these crackdowns.

A recent article from thairesidents.com, that is thairesidents.com, the title of this article is, “56 Illegal Foreigners Held in New Sweep”, and again I am not so much making this video to comment on yet another immigration Crackdown. That we have had for probably those who keep track of this channel you might argue that it has been sort of ad nauseam at this point, but I want to focus on the stats that we can pick up from this article. Quoting directly, "Tourist police mounted their 17th X-ray Outlaw Foreigner drive across the country last night and netted a total of 56 people from various countries for overstaying and illegal entry. 17, they have done 17 of these!

As I have gone into in another video or many other videos on this channel I don't think this is going to stop anytime soon. So I think Immigration crackdowns, at least for the foreseeable future, are going to be something that is just going to continue happening. So quoting directly but maybe more paraphrased, "74 targeted places nationwide, including international schools, language institutes, general schools and other sites". So first of all I guess what I'm trying to get the point of here, these crackdowns are happening in a very broad way. It is not a situation where "okay you just don't hang around in that area or maybe you don't go to that place!" No, they are hitting multiple different venues simultaneously. 74 places raided simultaneously, from a logistical standpoint that is a substantial undertaking so they are very serious about this. This is not something to just sort of dismiss.

Quoting further, "The important suspect, he is named in this article but I'm not going to name him, from Germany who overstayed for 3,304 days in North Nakhon Sawan province; the reason I bring this up, some of these folks are not the most innocent of actors when it comes to overstay here in the Kingdom and as I discussed some years ago, there were warnings given about the blacklisting and that people needed to get in status. 3,304 days! That is almost 10 years in overstay. I am not saying that these raids are good or bad but what I am saying is somebody that has been here 10 years in overstay, it is pretty hard to argue, that

a) you weren't put on notice of it and

b) that you shouldn't have done something about it.

Again back to the statistics though. Quoting further, "In the 31 such sweeps that have been launched so far, 31 such sweeps, that have been launched so far, 3,947 targeted areas were searched and 1,724 suspects arrested". So these are pretty significant numbers and again I don't foresee this changing, I don't foresee them laying off with respect to these raids. In fact if anything, I think that they are encouraged by these numbers, the Immigration Authorities, and I think they're going to continue with these raids, at least until they feel they have pretty much cleared out the substantial overstayers. Again, somebody who has been here for nearly 10 years in overstay, that is significant, that is somebody they are looking for. That is exactly why they are running these operations. Those are the exact kind of people they are targeting. Now it is unfortunate the odd person that gets caught up in one of these that is like a couple of days in overstay and gets hit with the 5-year bar by being arrested in the country that was implemented under the blacklisting rule, that is an unfortunate set of circumstances and I can’t help but sympathize with the individual put in that position but somebody who has been here 3,304 days without getting their visa sorted out, that is somebody who either didn't care or was just, I would argue, willfully flaunting the law.

So those who are watching this video, I think it is a good time if you are on overstay, really seriously consider ways to get it fixed or just leave to preclude getting arrested because I suspect this guy is probably going to be detained for at least some period of time before being deported. All of that is an unpleasant experience. The thing to take away from this video, just try to get your visa in order and keep it in order and keep it maintained throughout your stay here in the Kingdom.