Thai Immigration continues overstaying crackdown, passport checks take place across Pattaya

By Adam Judd

Pattaya, Thailand-The Royal Thai Immigration has been currently conducting an overstaying crackdown across Thailand dubbed Operation X-ray in some areas and Pattaya is not exempt.

TPN media has reported of multiple overstay arrests and actions taking place across Thailand over the past few days from small overstays like this, to much longer overstays caught like this one.

The campaign is officially running from December 1st to December 10th and is aimed at ensuring safety for the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Royal Thai Immigration has also recently warned this was coming, essentially telling those on overstay that if they came in to speak with them and sort the situation out in person they would avoid being arrested and being on the news.

That being said, based on daily reports of arrests of those on overstay it seems many were hoping to lay low or avoid Immigration, yet are still being found. December 5th, many TPN readers reported Immigration agents in the popular Treetown entertainment complex during the World Cup games.

Full story: https://thepattayanews.com/2022/12/06/thai-immigration-continues-overstaying-crackdown-passport-checks-take-place-across-pattaya/

90 days reporting will fix that in a flash.????????

It amazes me that they still have 90 day reporting and all the other silly rules for a law abiding Farang to stay there. Just like having people leave the country for one day only to return. WHAT IS THE POINT? What does that really accomplish and how does it improve the validation that someone is abiding by the rules and not being a problem for the country.  The good/honest people are doing the 90 days reporting. The bad guys who overstay aren't. So find a better process Thailand. Quit treating the honest guests of your country like criminals and more like they are welcome. 

I'm staying indoors for a few days.

Brilliant,

Let's just get some degree of normality going as the economy is way down and get the tourists returning.

Step 2, as soon is you can see ' green shoots of a revival ' and arrivals picking up, let's start passport checks, raiding bars and switching the lights on and making everybody uncomfortable and feel like criminals, then cap it off with 2am closing in beach resorts.

Those in power in this country really know their stuff!

What could possibly go wrong.

2 hours ago, webfact said:

The campaign is officially running from December 1st to December 10th and is aimed at ensuring safety for the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays

How ?? 
Ensuring safety how ? 

1 hour ago, HuskerDo2 said:

The good/honest people are doing the 90 days reporting. The bad guys who overstay aren't.

Exactly! I've thought this all along since they came out with this absurd rule.

1 hour ago, HuskerDo2 said:

It amazes me that they still have 90 day reporting and all the other silly rules for a law abiding Farang to stay there. Just like having people leave the country for one day only to return. WHAT IS THE POINT? What does that really accomplish and how does it improve the validation that someone is abiding by the rules and not being a problem for the country.  The good/honest people are doing the 90 days reporting. The bad guys who overstay aren't. So find a better process Thailand. Quit treating the honest guests of your country like criminals and more like they are welcome. 

If you are a tourist, at some point you need to go home. If you are living here and pretending to be a tourist, you are breaking the rules of your Permission to Stay. 90 day reports are trivial on-line. Too many people seem to think they have a right to live anywhere in the World they chose... I am afraid that is a European concept. 

The publicity is not a good thing but you can understand the underlying problem facing Imm., whether or not this is the right way to solve it is another matter. Lockdown changed much for many: many people who were visiting at the start of covid were allowed to stay for three years or more, using short term renewable visa's. Now that covid restrictions have been lifted, many of those people have decided they want to stay longer but aren't eligible for long stay visa's. Then there's the Chinese who seem notoriously poor at obtaining visa's. We have a Chinese neighbor who thinks that a visa is the lowest priority in his life and this guy has money and is eligible for a long stay visa, he always thinks he can buy his way out of everything.

19 minutes ago, ronster said:

How ?? 
Ensuring safety how ? 

Perhaps because people who ignore visa regulations also ignore other laws, I imagine that's probably true.

1 hour ago, HuskerDo2 said:

It amazes me that they still have 90 day reporting and all the other silly rules for a law abiding Farang to stay there.

People still don't understand why they have 90-day reporting, year-to-year permission to stay, even for people married to Thai nationals. It is all about keeping foreigner under control and obedient to show that they are insignificant. Some visas don't need 90-day reporting. 

1 minute ago, CartagenaWarlock said:

People still don't understand why they have 90-day reporting, year-to-year permission to stay, even for people married to Thai nationals. It is all about keeping foreigner under control and obedient to show that they are insignificant. Some visas don't need 90-day reporting. 

Why do we need to understand their logic for having 90 day reports, they are a requirement of the visa, if you don't like 90 day reports, don't get the visa. Thailand doesn't need to justify their reasons for having certain rules in place, certainly not to non-citizens. If you don't like what you perceive as their reasons for having or doing certain things, there are 194 other countries for you to chose from.

Good! Hope they find em all.

2 hours ago, HuskerDo2 said:

It amazes me that they still have 90 day reporting and all the other silly rules for a law abiding Farang to stay there. Just like having people leave the country for one day only to return. WHAT IS THE POINT? What does that really accomplish and how does it improve the validation that someone is abiding by the rules and not being a problem for the country.  The good/honest people are doing the 90 days reporting. The bad guys who overstay aren't. So find a better process Thailand. Quit treating the honest guests of your country like criminals and more like they are welcome. 

The only reason that they make people do border hops is it keeps the tourist numbers inflated. I just did one as my 5 year visa wasn't convertible inside the country so had to go back to the UK and apply at the embassy in London. 

14 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

The publicity is not a good thing but you can understand the underlying problem facing Imm., whether or not this is the right way to solve it is another matter. Lockdown changed much for many: many people who were visiting at the start of covid were allowed to stay for three years or more, using short term renewable visa's. Now that covid restrictions have been lifted, many of those people have decided they want to stay longer but aren't eligible for long stay visa's. Then there's the Chinese who seem notoriously poor at obtaining visa's. We have a Chinese neighbor who thinks that a visa is the lowest priority in his life and this guy has money and is eligible for a long stay visa, he always thinks he can buy his way out of everything.

Well..as a Chinese he can blend in easily and yes maybe he can buy himself out of trouble.

Asians can play the system way better than a dumbass, high-moral-ground farang 

I wonder how these millions of Sino-thais got to live here in the first place 

Seems there is special treatment for Chinese here.

Thai IDs (for a price) etc.

Crapt!! The thought of accidentally losing or damaging my passport to follow the letter of the law is a real pain. The cost and time involved in replacing the passport is significant. Unfortunately Thai lowmakers do not take this into consideration when making regulations. TIT.

2 hours ago, HuskerDo2 said:

Just like having people leave the country for one day only to return.

Last week I left for an hour.

2 hours ago, HuskerDo2 said:

WHAT IS THE POINT?

None at all.

9 minutes ago, VinnieK said:

Well..as a Chinese he can blend in easily and yes maybe he can buy himself out of trouble.

Asians can play the system way better than a dumbass, high-moral-ground farang 

I wonder how these millions of Sino-thais got to live here in the first place 

Seems there is special treatment for Chinese here.

Thai IDs (for a price) etc.

 

If you've been following the press lately you'll have seen that the Chinese triads have been busy buying up Bangkok business during the covid lockdown, a time when I'm sure Immi. wasn't too busy. And several also bought Thai ID's so this is not a small problem. The fact that a few farangs get caught up in it all and many more express moral outrage, is just noise.

1 hour ago, talahtnut said:

I'm staying indoors for a few days.

Why? Are you on overstay? ????

2 minutes ago, riverhigh said:

Crapt!! The thought of accidentally losing or damaging my passport to follow the letter of the law is a real pain. The cost and time involved in replacing the passport is significant. Unfortunately Thai lowmakers do not take this into consideration when making regulations. TIT.

The law only says that your passport must be available for inspection at reasonable notice, it doesn't say you must carry it with you all the time.

Got the tourists, now lets harass them so they never return

51 minutes ago, ronster said:

3 hours ago, webfact said:

The campaign is officially running from December 1st to December 10th and is aimed at ensuring safety for the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays

How ?? 
Ensuring safety how ? 

And from what, exactly? I don't condone breaking the law, even though that is the norm in Thailand, but have any of those caught on overstay been a threat to public safety?

5 minutes ago, riverhigh said:

Crapt!! The thought of accidentally losing or damaging my passport to follow the letter of the law is a real pain. The cost and time involved in replacing the passport is significant. Unfortunately Thai lowmakers do not take this into consideration when making regulations. TIT.

BS posting. The immigration clearly says that they will accept pics of passport and visa stamp in phone. Which I always keep. They can check validity of your passport and visa using their mobile phone. 

31 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

Why do we need to understand their logic for having 90 day reports, they are a requirement of the visa, if you don't like 90 day reports, don't get the visa. Thailand doesn't need to justify their reasons for having certain rules in place, certainly not to non-citizens. If you don't like what you perceive as their reasons for having or doing certain things, there are 194 other countries for you to chose from.

I understand clearly the reasons. It is the vast majority of posters in this forum that don't understand and bash Thai immigration because their voices are insignificant outside this forum and they constantly  need validation from insignificant people in this forum.

17 minutes ago, riverhigh said:

Crapt!! The thought of accidentally losing or damaging my passport to follow the letter of the law is a real pain. The cost and time involved in replacing the passport is significant. Unfortunately Thai lowmakers do not take this into consideration when making regulations. TIT.

If you read the article it clearly states that copies are acceptable.

The only time my passport sees the light of day is when I renew my visa.

53 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

... Too many people seem to think they have a right to live anywhere in the World they chose... I am afraid that is a European concept. 

Hardly!! In view of the rampant migration and asylum-seeking around the world, I'd say it's mainly an Asian/African/Latin American concept.

My view is its ridiculous to have 90 day reporting with a 12 month visa.

Only necessary if you change your fixed abode during that period of time.

Then again TIT I suppose. 

Part of their custom ingrained can't possibly accept change can they.

59 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

Why do we need to understand their logic for having 90 day reports, they are a requirement of the visa, if you don't like 90 day reports, don't get the visa. Thailand doesn't need to justify their reasons for having certain rules in place, certainly not to non-citizens. If you don't like what you perceive as their reasons for having or doing certain things, there are 194 other countries for you to chose from.

A very long winded way of saying if you don't like it leave. 

A simplistic, sort-sighted and sycophantic comment, surely you can do better?