BritTim

At one time, this was a common practice at some land borders. It saved the officials work, and meant that there was no record of an attempted entry in immigration's system. I have also heard a very rare case of this happening at an airport, but a long time ago. It was a different situation to yours. Someone was told they would be denied entry if they did not depart voluntarily with no blemish on the immigration history. They never went to a detention room. It is very strange. Two possibilities occur to me. First, that the officials screwed up and forgot to stamp your passport. The second is that the official who would have stamped your passport was different from the original official who denied you entry, and disagreed with your denial in the first place. He kindly omitted the passport stamp so it cannot potentially cause problems at embassies and other countries' borders in the future. Unfortunately, I think the denial was still recorded in immigration's system.

You can do it. Should be problem free at the current time.

Just to nit-pick a bit, an METV allows you to stay for about eight months However, you can validly claim that the METV was not originally created with that in mind. The hope was that it would be mainly used by those making multiple discrete trips to Thailand, not by long stay tourists. That aside, the government has, at times, issued visas targeted directly at long stay tourists. For instance, during Covid, they created the special tourist visa to allow you to stay nine months straight in Thailand without leaving. Actually, even the Thailand Elite Easy Access visa is essentially a glorified tourist visa, in theory allowing you to stay up to 20 years.

I believe the Minister can identify individuals or groups to be denied entry. The law states that only the Minister has this power. The Minister cannot transfer his powers to anyone else without cabinet approval together with publishing an order in the Royal Gazette. This amounts to a change in the law.

They never do these days, unless they are pretty sure you do not have it. The last thing they want is for you to show them a lot of cash, and then tell you that you cannot enter sue to lack of money,

What you write is quite true, with a few caveats. Most important, what can be done by fiat by the Minister alone, while quite broad, is still limited by the law. Any order he wishes to make that contradicts current provisions in the law, at a minimum, must be approved by the cabinet and published in the Gazette.

There is one other point that I should have thought to mention earlier. Stamp transfer is not necessary to do quickly for immigration purposes. However, you are supposed to promptly update your passport information in some other places (for instance, your bank). They will not necessarily be happy updating their records based on information from both the old and new passports (though there is no reason they cannot).

An interesting possibility. It is true that the Minister might have secretly instructed immigration at certain airports to deny people entering under certain conditions. I think that would be legal. I think some other countries (including the US) have employed such secret orders. I have never before seen suggestions that Thailand has done this ... but maybe. Still, I do not think this is the same as giving officials discretion. It seems the Minister does not have the power to do that.

The conditions applied by embassies and consulates for issuing visas varies. Some (for instance, Manila) are extremely strict in the documentation they need before issuing you a tourist visa. Others issue you a visa more easily. In the end, it does not matter. If a rogue official wants to refuse to honour your visa (and their superior turns a blind eye to the practice) it is very difficult to achieve due process.

He will get the denied entry stamp in his passport. Immigration would not dare to try to cancel the visa which they have no power to do, and where any attempt to do so would be obvious.

Actually, that was not the intended meaning of Section 12 [8] (though you are right that Immigration could try to twist the reason if they had evidence you engaged loose ladies). The intention was to deny entry to prostitutes, themselves, and traffickers.

You and I can agree on one thing. For those who do not have time to fully research the matter, using visa run companies makes sense. If a good visa run company agrees to take you to the border, they know you can almost certainly successfully exit and re-enter. The visa run companies stay away from the lawless border crossings, and will refuse to take you if they know (or suspect) that your border bounce (or visa application) would be denied.

I provided advice to the OP early in this thread. What I have (probably mistakenly) been doing since is laying out the official legal framework, and how you can best ensure that it is adhered to, and you do not become a victim of rogue officials.

Let me help: https://library.siam-legal.com/thai-law/thai-immigration-act-entering-and-departing-the-kingdom-sections-11-22/. You only need to read Section 12 and Section 22, but you can do a quick scan to see if anyone other than the Minister is allowed to depart from the terms of those two Sections.

The denials under 12 [9] were occurring while airport immigration was still following the law. They switched away from that because it was too easy to refute. They switched to 12 [2] six or seven years ago because they believe it is the least precisely defined reason for denied entry in Section 12. Who is to say what "appropriate means of supporting yourself in Thailand" means? Sure, you might try to provide documents showing you are a billionaire, but those documents might be forged. Even if you have a million baht in cash, how do they know that money is yours? Maybe, you just borrowed it for a few hours.

As you say, if there is a legitimate reason as specified in Section 12 of the Immigration Act (such as you being blacklisted from entering Thailand) the possession of a visa will not allow you to enter. No one disputes that. What is under debate is whether Thai immigration officials have discretion to deny entry for any reason, specifically for a reason not given in Section 12 of the Act. In almost every country, the answer is that the officials have full discretion. In Thailand the law says directly that they do not.

With a visa, some airports have historically been safe.

When immigration started wanting to deny entry to those with tourist visas, that is correct. They were seeking legitimate reasons under Section 12 for denying entry. One of the easiest was a failure to satisfy the prescribed 20,000 baht cash (or travellers' checks). When you could not show that, the officials could (and did) deny entry under Section 12 [9]. Today, officials will generally avoiding asking for that. They absolutely do not want those they deny entry to be able to claim that they demonstrated their ability to support themselves during their visit. Officials now almost invariably deny under Section 12 [2] which is less specific than not having the money specified by the Minister.

He is certainly working. Whether he has a work permit and is paying taxes is less certain. Note that he was using multiple entry Non O visas at the time he started the thread you cited. Whatever the full situation, I hope he can find a way through his visa woes and is able to properly take care of his family.

Although the OP may be unaware of the fact, it is much, much more likely that an agent arranged a retirement extension rather than an extension based on marriage. The Non O visa application followed by extension based on marriage is very difficult for agents to achieve unless all the normal requirements are met. Only a very few agents will do it. If the OP is over age 50, they will have processed a retirement extension, likely without telling the OP what they are doing and where.

Not a recommendation, but one to investigate is Siam Legal who certainly have some lawyers who are well versed in Thai immigration law. It appears that they also have an office in Phuket. I do worry that being a big firm with English speaking lawyers they might be very expensive.

No! Stay away from the Non O-A and Non O-X visas. See this page for all relevant visas for retirees that the Washington embassy claims to allow: https://thaiembdc.org/2020/09/30/nonimmigrantoaox/. You need to figure out how to make the application for a Non O (retirement) through the e-visa system. Note that instructions implying that health insurance is necessary should no longer be true for a Non O (retirement) visa. That was only a requirement during Covid.

... or, for a while, the special tourist visa that allowed a nine-month stay without even a border bounce, or the Thailand Elite Easy Access visa (a glorified tourist visa) that, in theory can allow you to be a tourist in Thailand for up to 20 years. In fact, it has been known for airport immigration to refuse to honour newly issued METVs, where the embassy has already screened you for sufficient finances, claiming in the paperwork that you haver no visible means of supporting yourself during your 60-day stay. Some officials do not like the law as it is written, and feel empowered to try to create their own.

You certainly do not have to do the stamp transfer immediately. However, correct completion of your next 90-day report (using the new passport number and date of entry) is unlikely to be possible online. I think that will need to be done in person (using both passports) and they will transfer what is necessary from the old passport then.

That is correct. We had an offline discussion via PM on August 29-30 2022 where you showed an inability to understand clearly written legal language. As you say, there is no point in discussing this further.