007 RED

3 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

Simply because he is NOT being deported he is being refused to enter which are 2 different things. To be deported you must first be allowed to enter the country for which he has not been allowed.

The big words that are different are "deported" and "refused entry"

Section 55 of the Immigration Act applies to anyone who has been 'refused entry' under Section 12 of the Act. 

FYI -  Although the Immigration Act (which was approved in 1979) uses the word deportation, that is word has been replaced by removal.  The UN decided several years ago that the term deportation had connotation with criminal activities, which did not apply to an individual who may just have been refused entry.

The reason as to why he apparently being returned by the Ukrainian airline is covered in the first part of Section 55 of the Immigration Act B.E. 2522.

“Aliens being deported under this Act shall be sent back by any conveyance or route as the competent official may consider appropriate.  The expense of deportation shall be charged to the owner or person in charge of the conveyance which brought the alien into the Kingdom.

If there appears to be no owner or person in charge of the conveyance, the alien committing the act against the provisions of Section 63 or 64 will have to pay the expense of deportation. The competent official shall have power to ask for deportation expenses from one of the aliens committing the offense or from all of them.

However, if the alien concerned wishes to go by and other conveyance or by another route, at his own expense, the competent official may permit him to do so”.

What is interesting is the last part of this Section of the Act in so far that if the alien concerned wishes to go by other conveyance or another route, at his own expense, the competent official may permit him to do so.

So why hasn’t the OP’s friend been given that option when the OP’s friend has stated the he is willing to pay for his flight back to the USA?

22 minutes ago, yogavnture said:

this is too confusing to follow. how does your friend like the airport jail////  the thais might start charging him to stay their

They do... 600 Baht per day

@sendintheclowns.....  There is a translation shop inside the MFA Consular building.  it is on the second floor directly in front of you as you reach the top of the escalator.  The 'shop' is run by officers who work for the MFA Legalisation Department (they work in the shop as a second job).  They have ready made templates which they can fill in with your specific details fairly quickly.  Their prices are about the same as you would pay outside.  The bonus being that in the unlikely event that there is a problem with legalisation, they will sort it out very quickly as they are on site.  I am given to understand that they can also arrange to have the document legalised at an extra cost.

Hope this helps.

7 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

In an ideal world, call their contact(s) here in Thailand, say, "Hey, there's one of our people in your airport immigration jail - no criminal charges or anything (assuming this is true) - he just needs to get home.  What do you say we get him on the next flight to the USA?"

 

This seems like that would be something Thailand and the USA could do for each others' citizens, within the other's respective country, without a major diplomatic incident or either feeling like their national-sovereignty has been violated.

Totally agree with you on your comments, but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.

I'm sure that you are aware that the assistance which Consulates can give to their citizens when they get into trouble is very limited.  In the case of the USA Embassy, their website does give some limited information https://th.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/arrest-of-a-u-s-citizen/  May be the OP should contact them and inform them and ask their advice.

1 hour ago, eisfeld said:

There's probably more to the story than the OP knows or states. A one day overstay shouldn't result in deportation from Ukraine and a US citizen splitting his holiday between Thailand and Ukraine isn't really common either. Also getting jailed for a couple days because entry was refused sounds a bit unusual. They would just force him to fly home (or somewhere else if he's lucky). The immigration officer also wouldn't really know that he was refused entry to Ukraine unless he told them so. They could only raise suspicion because there were no entry/exit stamps from Ukraine and that he came back so quickly (who does visa runs to Ukraine?) but it's not like Ukraine sends Thailand "headsup, a deportee coming through!". Maybe he lied to the officer or tried to pull some other stunt. Also why would Ukraine pay for his return flight?

I agree that it does seem very strange that someone is refused entry (not deported as he never entered the country) for overstaying by just one day. 

Also the fact that the Ukraine authorities funded the ticket back to Thailand.  Normally it is down to PAX has to pay for his/her repatriation - unless it was an airline 'cockup.

Regarding Thai immigration being aware of his arrival, yes they would have been informed by their counterparts in the Ukraine.  That is standard procedure so that the destination country can arrange a 'welcoming committee' if necessary.

It is also puzzling as to why Thai immigration should be detaining him.  I was under the impression that US citizen qualify for visa exempt.

There certainly seem to be more that the OP is aware of.

6 hours ago, BritTim said:

Beware! After an initial denial of entry, it is likely that an attempt to check in for a flight to Thailand will fail owing to the Advanced Passenger Information System.

Tim….  A refused entry would not trigger a ‘do not board’ message via the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS).

As you are well aware a person can be refused entry for any number of reasons.

Let’s say (hypothetically) that you were refused entry because you did not have 20K BHT in your pocket when asked by the IO.  If that refusal subsequently triggered a ‘do not board message’ via APIS, that would mean that you would never be able to fly into Thailand ever again because each time you tried to check in for a flight to Thailand, even with 10m Baht in your pocket, the airline would refuse to carry you.  I would imagine that you would not be a happy bunny.

Generally, ‘do not board’ messages via APIS are only activated for serious concerns such as an individual having been banned.

11 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

I know all about Megan's Law and I know all about Section 4 and I know what it is used for and how it is used

OK so you know all about these things but the OP, and others, who may be less informed than yourself may be under the impression from your post that the passport issuing authority collect every scrap of information from all and sundry and pass it into the rest of the world.  So some clarification does not hurt.

2 hours ago, Russell17au said:

 

We may also collect personal information from third parties such as law enforcement or security agencies where the third parties provide us with information which is relevant to your application for a passport.

We are authorised by law to disclose your personal information to foreign border authorities:

1: Interpol and its member countries; other countries with which we have an agreement for purposes such as advising about the status of a passport; law enforcement authorities; to Australian border authorities to facilitate international travel; and law courts for the operation of family law and related matters.

 2: if we suspect there is unlawful activity relating to the passport

3: for law enforcement purposes

4: in countries with which Australia participates in the Regional Movement Alert System

https://ppol.passports.gov.au/Web/Forms/Passport/Adult/PC1_notes_sr.pdf

It is common practice for most passport issuing authorities throughout the world to request information from a number of in-country agencies, including law enforcement and security agencies.  Such request are made to facilitate the authentication of the application.  The request is not for a breakdown of the applicant’s criminal history etc.

In some very rare cases, law enforcement may advise the passport issuing authority that the individual is subject to Court Order preventing travel outside the applicant’s country.

FYI – In October 2017 the USA introduced Megan’s Law which specifically prohibits the Department of State from issuing passports to a registered sex offender without a ‘unique identifier’.  It also allows for the cancellation of passports that have been previously issued to such offenders that do not have the ‘unique identifier’.

The ‘unique identifier’ is in fact an endorsement on the last page of the passport that reads: “The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212b(c)(l).”

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/passports/passports-and-international-megans-law.html

Regarding the paragraph which indicates that the passport issuing authority are authorised to disclose your personal information to foreign boarder authorities, again is standard procedure. This does not mean that they are going to send the all applicants personal information, including any criminal history, to every immigration and law enforcement service throughout the world.  That would be both totally excessive and impractical.

What this means is, for example, if Thai immigration suspected that the person’s passport was fake, or they suspect that the person is not who they say they are, the Australian passport authority will provide such information as is necessary to assist Thai immigration with their investigation.

The statements which you have reproduced from Section 4 (Notice of collection, use and disclosure of your personal information) of the Australian passport application form is there to comply with the Australian Privacy Act, and this is again fairly standard practice in most countries so as to ensure that the applicant is aware of why they are collecting the information, how it is be use and with whom it may be shared with.

3 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

You would be wasting your time as the IO at your point of entry has the legal right to refuse you entry even if you have a valid visa. It happened here last week with a chap having back to back tourist visa's and he had a valid visa from Malaysia but he was refused entry by the IO at the airport. This is how it works in all the other countries as well.

No guarantee on you being able to enter a country even if you have a valid visa.

You are correct when you say that the decision to allow anyone to enter the country is at the discretion of the IO - That applies to any country not just Thailand.

However, with the case that you referred to, it now transpires that the individual had been living and apparently working on tourist visas for 7 years, so its not surprising that he eventually got an entry refusal.

5 hours ago, stevenl said:

Apparently that information is included in US passports. Other countries I really don't know.

It would appear that registered child sex offender's in the USA are now having to apply for a new passport if they wish to travel outside the US.  Apparently the last page of the passport contains a notation (they call it an identifier) to the effect  “The bearer was convicted of a sex offence against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to US law.”

This follows the recent adoption of the so called Megan's Law in the US in 2016.

A first for the US.  How long before other countries follow this example?

On ‎28‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 5:47 AM, Faeton said:

but once again I remind you I had 4 tourist visas in a row in this passport.
Who really is a tourist should not be affected in any way.

 

Originally you told us that you just had 4 back-to-back tourist visas, and were wondering why you were stopped and then refused entry.

1 hour ago, Faeton said:

I have 2 active passports.
First passport is full of stamps - stay thailand 5 years.
Second passport is have half and I stay thailand 2 years on this.

 

 

 

Now you are changing your story.  7 years in Thailand, assumably on tourist visas? and you still wonder why you were stopped?

50 minutes ago, Faeton said:

2520 days on tourist visa computer should to show ) or I was too lucky ?)

Now you admit that you have spent 2,520 days (nearly 7 years) in Thailand on a tourist visa and you wonder why immigration stopped you.  They definitely suspected you of working, hence being refused (Section 12. 2). 

Regardless of how you managed to get back in, if I was you (which thankfully I'm not), I would be watching over my shoulder for the immigration enforcement team.  I suspect they will be paying you a visit in the not to distant future, and then its off to court, a little fine, deportation back to your home country at your expence and a ban from entering the Kingdom for quite some time.

1 minute ago, dennis D said:

Thank you. I in boxed you but since seen your replies here. Thank you for your time and info. And thank you for not abusing me because of my brothers past. He done the crime, he done the time and me and my 3 other brothers flogged the shit out of him for it and then moved on. :)

You mentioned in your original post that your brother does not have to notify anyone (law enforcement, I assume) when he changes address.  If that is the case, he is not an the sex offenders register and will not have to notify anyone when he leaves the country.  So highly unlikely that his history will be disclosed by the Australian Authorities.

As I said - Good luck and hope the wedding goes well.

OP…. Your brother does not need to declare his criminal offence if he applies for a tourist visa.  In fact as an Australian citizen he is eligible for Visa Exempt – that is to say he does not need to obtain a visa from the Thai Embassy/Consulate in Australia, he just arrives at the airport, gives his passport to that immigration officer, who will then allow him to stay in the Kingdom for 30 days (free of charge).

Regarding your comments about another post concerning the refusal to allow another person from the USA to enter the kingdom because he allegedly had a criminal record, I would ignore. 

A lot of paranoia and people jumping to all sorts of wrong conclusions.  There is no indication from the original poster as to what offence he was convicted of.  2 months in jail is very unlikely to be a sex offence. Law enforcement agencies around the world don’t routinely share information about people who have been convicted of not wearing a seatbelt or any other offence.

Hope your brother gets to the wedding.

PS... Tell your brother - if the immigration officer askes him do you have a criminal record - smile nicely and say Who me?

14 minutes ago, TunnelRat69 said:

I would think his passport has been coded/flagged, quite possibly the New designator for a sex offender offense.    That is the only one I would say that Thai Immigrations has access to.

Not having any real feeling for what the sentencing policy is in the USA, I have looked up the USA federal mandatory sentencing guidelines (minimum/maximum) for Judges (Up-dated November 2008). 

These guidelines cover everything from 1st offence driving a snowmobile whilst under the influence of alcohol = 48 hours to 6 months jail time, up to Capital felony = Execution or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

To put things in perspective, processing child pornography carry sentences of between 1 and 5 years; minor crimes of sexual nature against children carry sentences of between 2 to 5 years.  However, if it is an aggravated sexual assault against a minor the sentence starts at 25 years for a 1st offence.

The OP has indicated that the person concerned was jailed for 2 months (25 years ago). So I think that is a fair indication that whatever the offence was, it was relatively minor and nowhere in the league of sex offences.

FYI - Passports do not carry any information concerning criminal offences.  Before you suggest the so called biometric chip does, it does not.  It only contains the same information that is between <<<< >>>> at the bottom of the photo page plus a copy of the individual's photo.  The chip information is encrypted to make it harder to forge the passport.

1 hour ago, SunsetT said:

So 90% of men arriving should be refused entry ................

You slightly miss quoted Section 12(8) of the Immigration Act... but I'm happy to call it journalistic licence...Have to say it made me . 

1 minute ago, juice777 said:

I've never herd one time of A Thai immigration officer asking anyone if they have been to prison. There has to be more to this then the op knows.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
 

You may not have herd of it being asked... but many countries ask this information when you apply for a visa... so why should an IO not ask it?

39 minutes ago, Mattd said:

Some interesting reading here regarding PNR (Passenger Name Records) sharing agreement between the EU & Australia, seems this was only agreed and introduced relatively recently.

https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreements#incoming-588

Nothing very new or revealing in these documents.

FYI – the above was a Freedom of Information request made to the European Commission by a human rights activist.  He basically wanted to have access to all documents held by any of the member of the EU relating to the exchange of information in respect of Passenger Name Records (PNR).

PNR is the term used for the basic passenger biographic information collected at the international departure point from their passport.  This basic information is fed into the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS), which in turn forwards the information to the destination country, thereby allowing that country to indicate that will accept or refuse entry of that passenger.  This process normally takes place before the person leave their departure country. 

PNR currently does not contain any information relating to criminal history.  The USA has been pressing hard to have additional information supplied including criminal history and financial status, but this is being rejected by the 26 countries which currently use the APIS.

3 hours ago, overherebc said:

If you change your name by deed poll and get a new passport it is obviously recorded in home office records although not in your passport it seems.

The only bit I can't find yet is if that info is sent on passenger details pre-flight, I doubt it though.

If say blacklisted by one country and you do a legal name change and get a new passport would the blacklisting be noted by home office computers? it seems not, I'm still searching.

Facial recognition is not as fast as in the movies and may throw a result up later, note may.

So on the face of it unless luck is not on your side a name and passport change means you are basically a fairly new traveller, apart from finger printing that is.

 

Changing your name(s) and obtaining a new passport may appear to be a solution to be able to ‘fly under the radar’.  That said, the national security organisations of most counties have been well aware of this possible dodge for some considerable time.

I think that you will find that the passport issuing authority are required to notify their respective national security organisation of such a change so that the security agency can still keep track of ‘people of interest’.

There is certainly no mention of name change on the new passport.

Regarding the question of one country informing another that an individual has been ‘blacklisted’ is very remote.  When it is done, there are usually very special security related reasons.  It is certainly not done for example when someone is banned for overstay or even drug related offences.

Regarding facial recognition – please see my comments above.

3 hours ago, phuketrichard said:

go back home, Legally change ur name, apply for a new passport in New name, get a thai visa

return....

computers do NOT link or show name changes....

Richard…. FYI… The immigration system is more than capable of linking someone even when they change their name(s). 

The immigration system incorporates a fairly basic Facial Recognition System (FRS) which can compare the photo taken from the microchip embedded within the passport against that stored in the immigration database. 

The FRC won’t need to search tens of millions of photos within its database, which would obviously take ages.  The system can very quickly ‘boil’ the number of potential matches down to possibly less than 100.

If for example there have been 10 million Russians aged between 5 and 70 years of age having visited the Kingdom within the past10 years.  How many of those are possibly males?

Let’s just say 50%.  So now you have 5 million Russian male visitors aged between 5 and 70 years of age.  How many of those males were born on the same birth date as the OP?

I think you will find that the chances of there being more than 100 are fairly slim.

So even with a fairly basic facial recognition system doing an evaluation of 100 photos, the chances are that it will pull up the OP’s photo very quickly and inform the IO that there is a possible match. 

The IO only needs to compare the photo taken of the OP the last time he arrived/left the Kingdom, with the person standing in front of him/her, and bingo.  The IO will then link the new passport with the old one (previous name) and be able to see the OP’s previous entry/exit history.

My understanding is that the system will be 80% plus reliable in finding a match even when someone has changed their name(s).

The interesting bit would come after that.  How do they deal with him?

9 hours ago, juice777 said:

But if he had absolute proof wouldn't he black list him?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
 

Technically the OP had not been admitted to the Kingdon. He was in so called 'no-mans land', so all that immigration could do was to refuse him entry on the grounds of Section 12(2).

He should consider himself lucky.  If the IO had enough proof that the OP was working, and wanted to play 'dirty', he could have stamped his passport and admitted him.  Then the moment the OP passed the IOs desk into the baggage reclaim area (which is technically inside the Kingdom) immigation could have arrested him and charged him with working contary to Section 37.

That said what would more than likely happen is that they could have let him enter the Kingdom and the pass their information/evidence to the local immigation office enforcement team who would follow up and then arrest the OP 'on-the-job' thus ensuring 100% proof.

If found guilty in court he would face a fine, possible inprisonment, deportation and a ban from entering the Kingdom for quite some time.

2 minutes ago, SicTransit said:

 

Been pointed out at least ten times in this thread alone. But what “slate” does the OP need to clean? He is not blacklisted after all. Correct me if I’m wrong but getting a new passport does not violate any laws, immigration or otherwise.

 

You are perfectly correct when you say that getting a new passport does not violate any laws, immigration or otherwise.  I also agree that as far as he has admitted, he has not been banned or blacklisted.

However, the Op seems to be under the impressiion (wrongly so) that by getting a new passport the IO will not see his previous entry/exit history and the reason for his recent entry refusal, therefore, enhacing his chances of being admitted the next time he tries to enter.