Whitey

Just a quick question for the OP, have you been keeping up on your US taxes. Your wife is required to pay taxes on her worldwide income now that she has a greencard....sure it can be excluded, but you need to make sure the forms are filed timely.

9 months should be ok, but I would go back before much longer because the 1 year mark can be an automatic loss of green card status. If you are looking for a quick getaway to reset the clock, a trip to Guam or Saipan is certainly an option.

FYI, time spent on Saipan is retroactively counting for time spent in the US for permanent residence purposes.

Great advice given on this thread.

Why don't you post the name on http://forum.teflschoolreviews.com ???

Me and my partner are British. Our son was born here in Bangkok 1 year ago. He has a Brit passport, but no visa stamp. We will go to the UK for the first time in July, and I need to know if he needs a visa to get back in to Thailand with us.

I have fired off emails to both the Thai embassy in London and the Brit embassy in BK, but have had no response so far. Any ideas here?

Our (parents) visa status is a bit muddled, as we are in the process of changing jobs. But at the moment I (father) am on a non-imm B, and mother will be on a a 30-day VOA.

Many thanks

Get your child a proper Non-Immi O visa when you come back. Why? Sure the child can enter on a 30 day exemption and can overstay as long as they want with no fine, but there is a problem.

1) The exemption from overstay fines is not a law, rather it is a Thai Immi regulation. Regulations are very easy to change. It can change at ANY time. Read the actual law concerning overstays and you'll see it makes no provision for under 15, under 13, under 7 or any other age.

2) This is important. Your child is only permitted 90 days out of 180 days in Thailand on exemption. So if you stay for a year on overstay and then pop out of the country for a couple of days, your child can be refused entry. It happened to me.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/90-180-Rule-...ds-t113621.html

Infra structure is very crude

Law and order is what you are prepared to pay for

Guns are everywhere, armed guards on any business of any substance

Armed robbery is commonplace

The Philipine male is very much more in your face than in LOS

The philipina has only one goal in mind and that is to get out and get a foreign passport (UK US Euro) She will then work all hours and send every cent back to her family (so whats in it for you?)

IMHO they can be even more cunning and treacherous than LOS BGs

If ever there was a place that doesnt suffer fools its RP

But go take a look, it may suit you

About Filipinos, it all depends on the crowd you hang out with. It's wrong to generalize like you do because I find your statements dead wrong.

The Philippines does have a more progressive visa structure than LOS.

1) If you are married to a local, then you can get permanent residence relatively easy.

2) You can stay up to 16 months just on tourist visa exemptions.

3) If you are married to a local, you get 12 months on entry, if you enter with the your filipina wife.

I worked with a teacher who ran into that problem. They stop him at the border and wouldn't allow him to leave until he had the stamp from immigration back in Bangkok....and they wouldn't give it until he had his receipt for canceling his work permit. It's a very real problem.

My wife was talking with a friend of hers recently who is a Filipina teaching in Thailand. She's been working at a government school and they lost their funding for foreign teachers so she and other teachers were let go. The highest paying position she can find is 15k per month and for the first time in 6 years, she is thinking about going back to the Philippines. She can earn that much teaching back in the Philippines.

Your name is on the birth certificate as the father. As long as you leave legally with her consent, you're ok. Once you get to your home country, apply for a court adjudication that you have custody. In Canada, fathers do have the right of custody, the same as the US. Don't let people fill your head with BS. See a lawyer in your home country and ask HER to make it happen with you and custody.

Ask yourself, what's more important? Losing your kid or staying in Thailand where he is in jeopardy?

You've got a son, you need to be thinking with the other head.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=113621

The 90 in 180 day rule applies to kids. And realize that your kids need legit visas....sure they don charge overstay now(except at some border crossings,like Sadao) for children, but what would prevent them from changing it tomorrow. Realize the law doesn't make a distinction on age, the distinction on age is a immigration rule and rules can be changed on a whim. Do you want your children's life in Thailand to be based on the whim of a thai official

Just another hoop the immigration people can enjoy watching the farang jump through. Everytime they make a new hoop and the farang jumps through it, they know how superior Thailand is.

The Philippines is safe enough. There is a perception of crime in places like Cebu, but they are perceptions rather than facts. In Thailand, you don't read the local papers because they're in Thai! In the Philippines, you can read the local papers....so comparing stories in the newspapers is impossible.

Once you get your way about you, you find its just as safe. You can flame the Philippines all you want, but they are moving in the right direction and are cognizant of their problems.

I took a friend into the local immigration office a few days after the announcement of the change was made. The clerk there new all about the change from 12 to 24 months. Her reaction? She was happy. She said it is good because foreigners don't have to be inconvenienced by making a trip out of the country as often. The entire chain of command at the immigration department knows that foreigners use the 21 day tourist permit to stay long term and the rules are set up to make it even easier.

Contrast that with Thailand. In Thailand, they don't want to make it easy for you to stay, instead I get the distinct impression that Thai immigration wants to see just how many hoops they can make you jump through just to stay in the country. I believe they get their jollies doing that.

Me? I won't visit the immigration office here in the Philippines until the end of July 2008. Why? I am married to a Filipina. I got a 1 year visa when I entered the country. No 90 day checkins, no fees, no nothing.

Sure it ain't perfect over here, but for us it is infinitely easier living over here than it was in Thailand as a foreign couple.

I'd be interested to know more about this other single woman he was staying with. (The original article says the girlfriend left him alone with the other woman who he was living with)

Sorry, but I see the situation as one of "eat or be eaten". Being a gentleman about the whole situation seems to be a bit ridiculous. Do whatever it takes to get the docs back in hand.

I understand your position, and have no sympathy for the owner--she deserves punishment as far as I'm concerned. However, creating bad feeling can come back to bite you in unexpected ways. It is best to tread lightly and minimize ill will whenever possible.

My simple suggestion in this matter is to kindly inform her that it would be a shame for her to do that because in order to order replacements, you would need to visit the local police station to file an affadavit that your papers were missing and that unfortunately the police would have to mark that they were stolen. Explain that you would need this affadavit to take to the US Embassy who would issue a letter confirming to your school that you did indeed have your degree stolen. Unfortunately, the US government may put her name in some sort of a computer as being a criminal. Explain that you surely would hate to see that happen because you have had such a good relationship.

He says with the current rules, a foreigner can get unlimited three month visas from the embassies, you just can't get more than two from the same embassy in one year. He's not concerned at all with the visa rules.

I'm not disputing or dismissing anything that has been said, Thailand HAS changed. I just found his experience refreshing and the possibility of returning to Thailand a reality!

Those 3 month visa you are talking about are actually 2 month visas called tourist visas. Every time you apply for one, it's up to the embassy whether you will get it or not. But never mind, schools in Bangkok were raided and in the coming year I'm sure more schools will be raided. Ask yourself, do you want to be working in fear that any day immigration can raid your school and jail you for working on a tourist visa? Yes jail can happen. A few teachers can testify to that.

Don't discount this thread. You have to choose for yourself whether you want to live and work in such an environment. The posters on this thread have done their best to give you the information to make that decision.

Since this thread is about the ever changing rules for teachers, I figured this is the appropriate place to put this.

My school has hired all of its teachers for the coming year, anubahn, prathom and mattayom. All cool, right? They thought they had teachers with the right qualifications to get them work permits. Hah! They have just been notified that their Anubahn teachers need 15 credits in Early Childhood Education or a TEFL certificate specially tailored for young learners or something else. Even they were having a hard time figuring out the requirement.

New requirements all the time and no warning.

I think a lot of the stories you get coming out from China are very personal in nature. Those who liked it are still there and don't talk much about it. Those who left, maybe left because of negative experiences.

I've talked to several teachers who have taught in China and then came to Thailand. One hated China, mainly because of of a negative employer. The rest liked China and are going back because they can't deal with the BS here. The general impression I got is that China can have BS jobs and good jobs. If you get a good one, China's a breeze. If you get a bad one, you just blow out of the country. If you get a bad job in Thailand, you find another and another and you just deal with the BS because you are only working for one reason, to be in Thailand.

Which boils down to the big difference. People teach in China because they either want to teach or they want a job, not because they love the Chinese lifestyle. People teach in Thailand because they love the Thai lifestyle and need money to support themselves, not because they want to teach.

I've heard horror stories about Korea as well. I don't think it's some promised land. Some schools promise a bonus if you complete your contract and then "fire" you 2 weeks before your contract is up so they don't have to pay up. This happened to a friend of mine and I had heard of it happening by reading accounts on a certain famous Thailand teachers job website.

Thanks for the support, Sniperteam.

Jimjim, in Thailand, it is not uncommon for a school to let you go at the end of March when your contract is through the end of April so they can avoid paying you for April and any promised bonus. Or the famous trick that when you don't sign a new contract then at the end of your last month, they just don't pay you. These are tricks schools everywhere try to pull. So why deal with these antics in a place that pays peanuts.

When my wife was exiting Thailand through Sadao on her way to Penang alone, her van passengers all got nice rude treatment, they were asked to pay money to get the stamp out(100 baht each) and had their passports throw to them. As she was walking away from the window, there was a shift change and one of the officers left his box with a plastic bag full of money, some coins dropped on the ground. He looked at them and walked on. Seems loose change didn't even matter to him, just the bigger bucks.

If a fellow was into conspiracies, he might think the border posts are given free rein by the government to increase revenue in exchange for allegiance, but I know that's not the case. Every baht collected is helping to make the Kingdom of Thailand a stronger nation and I'm happy to pay my part to help the betterment of Thailand.

Others may not be as helpful as I am. Those less helpful souls may want to avoid teaching in Thailand until a newly elected government is in place that provides some, IMHO unneeded, accountability to government ministries.

Why am I still in Thailand? I managed to get hired by a school that has great students and an awesome Thai director who really cares about education and my family. It took me 5 years in Thailand to find this job, including 2 years of doing monthly border runs. Under the current environment, I couldn't have got where I am today.

Whitey, if you don't mind telling us, it would be good to know what incredible problems some teacherscan have, even when they're very experienced, and savy in the ways of ThaiTEFL and other-country TEFL, and you've said you work for a good school (who recently got on the phone and made international calls to help you get visas!). It still isn't worth teaching here, is it?

It's been very crazy and I won't go into all of them, well maybe I will.

Most outrageous problem:

Crossing the border out of Thailand. A nice gentleman stamped me out of Thailand and then went to stamp my youngest son out(my wife was in the Philippines). He kindly told me to go to the overstay office to notate that my 3 year old didn't have to pay a fine(standard operating procedure) so off I went. I waited several minutes for an extremely intelligent man to finish his food and stamp my son's passport. He opened the passport to the current entry stamp and saw a previous notation about no fine and said that since it was previously stamped, he wouldn't stamp it again.

I was very confused since his use of English was so good and mine is very weak. After a few minutes of him saying thoughtful words about foreigners, my mother, and my intelligence level, I finally understood what he was saying. He thought that I had previously got the stamp from the office and then didn't get an exit stamp out of Thailand. I decided that I would show him the exit stamp on the previous page. I don't know what made him upset about seeing the exit stamp, but he slapped me on my arm several times, threw the passport away and began saying more thoughtful words about foreigners, my mother, and my intelligence level.

The kind gentleman who stamped me out of Thailand was doing his level best of smiling at me and hoping that his supervisor would smile as well. Especially since he knew my school quite well, but no luck, more thoughtful words about foreigners, my mother, and my intelligence level came forth from the supervisor's mouth. I think it was past the cue to offer a special payment for all the extra work the supervisor needed to do.

At this point, the extremely intelligent man decided it was in his best interest to take into custody the offending dangerous criminal and proceeded to detain my 3 year old son. When I tried to raise an objection, I was told that since I was stamped out of Thailand, I must leave Thailand right now and that I was not allowed to be in Thailand. Knowing the facts, some would call this kidnapping, but in Thailand, it is protecting the Kingdom of Thailand from dangerous criminals. When I protested, I was informed that a payment would be accepted then and there to release my son. Some would call it ransom, but that's far from the case in Thailand. 20k baht was the agreed upon figure. I asked for a receipt, but they were unwilling to provide one. I needed to submit for reimbursement to my school, but extremely intelligent man was not willing to provide one.

I was allowed to proceed on my way. Upon re-entry several days later, I was told that my son had used up his 90 days in 180 days but they eventually let him in, but that's on another thread and easy to deal with.

As you can see many problems. Penang won't easily issue a Non-immi O to a 3 year old. My local immigration office won't extend a non-immi 0 for a 3 year old, their words, not mine. Basically, if you got kids, they can ransom them at the border. That's reason enough not to live in Thailand.

Next Problem:

I work at a good school. They provided me with all the paperwork last October to get my wife an Non-iimi 0 in Penang. All the changes in immi happened then. I went down and Penang wouldn't issue her the non-immi O. Instead they issued her a tourist visa and told her to sort it out in Thailand and that the immi office in our city, 1000km from Bangkok, would change it for her. Ok. Came back and they laughed and said no dice. You can do it in Bangkok.

It has become virtually impossible to get a visa for dependents in Thailand. My way around it? When the tourist visa ran out, my school had the idea of giving her all the paperwork as if hiring her as a teacher and send her down to get a Non-immi B in Penang. The local immi office said no problem, they could change the non-immi B to an O and extend her to a year. Then the criminal background check came out in the first week of January.

All of a sudden, she needed to get a CRB from the Philippines. No problem, just fly to the Philippines. But she did 30 day crossings from January to March when she went to the Philippines. The Thai Embassy in Manila won't issue the visa without some special paper from the Philippine government. Great, she just went to Malaysia where I would meet her.

We were going to meet in Malaysia to get the visa, but since I don't like traveling with too much cash and since the extremely intelligent man relieved me of much of my budget(and knowing the rules about needing to show 20k when crossing the border), I decided not to take a chance and come back to Thailand to get more cash from the bank to pay for the visa run the school was going to reimburse us(yes my school is a good school and was more than willing to pay the visa run for my wife!).

Because they said if my son left he wouldn't be able to enter Thailand for 90 days, my wife had to go back to Penang alone so much for my planned one week vacation on the beach in Penang.

It's just too much of a hassle. My school is awesome, I think it's one of the best in Thailand and the two mods here know enough to know that I know what I'm talking about. They're doing their best, it's a famous school with enough connections to get anything done locally, but still they can't deal with the massive amount of BS that immi and others are dishing out. It's ridiculous.

Don't come to Thailand to teach. It's just to crazy to deal with things now. Even with a good school who backs me up, it's hard to deal with the bs. As a professional teacher with 9 years of teaching experience, this is just unacceptable.

I'm not posting this as a warning to others or to ask for advice. I'm just posting it to tell others what I have dealt with.

I don't need advice because I already know the best way to deal with these problems, just leave Thailand. There is nothing, short of leaving, that we can do to change Thailand for the better. Others aren't so lucky, they have Thai wives, Thai girlfriends, Thai boyfriends, Thai children or other compelling reasons to stay in Thailand and have no choice but to just lean over and take it. If you're not already in one of those groups, don't come, because odds are you will be soon enough.

I agree with ijwt and pb, it's just too difficult to teach here and/or live here even when you have all the paperwork from the school and you are trying to do everything by the book. I won't even post some of what I have went through in the last 3 weeks because no one will believe me if I did. Stay home.

I haven't been enough of a world traveller to count the countries where I as a Westerner can just walk in with my passport, live there month after month and year after year, without getting some kind of a visa. Passing through as a tourist, sure. But to basically be a long term resident there, without them knowing my data, is a sure sign of an undeveloped country that can't afford to regulate itself.

Besides, stamps are given out for free. Real visas are expensive, and that's a revenue stream they are now tapping.

Ah, but i have done enough traveling to count the countries and offer a little more info on them.

- Mexico, you get 6 months at a time when crossing the border. Other mentioned this and you mentioned government protesting. That's something that gets you blacklisted and tossed in prison in Thailand, ask the Swiss guy. In Mexico, you can still get a visa to enter.

- Philippines: You can perpetually live on the 21 day visa you get when you enter. Just renew it every month until you've spent a year in the country. Exit the country and start the count all over again. If you marry a local girl, you get a free 1 year stay on entry that can be extended to 2 years.

- Honduras, get a 30 day entry, keep extending it out to 6 months. Leave the country and re-enter to start it all over again.

- Uruguay, get a 90 day stay, enter and exit perpetually. If you want to stay, just show $500 a month income from abroad and you got permanent residence(after 3 years you get citizenship)

- Chile, many teachers have been doing the twice yearly trip across the Andes to Argentina for years.

- Nicaragua, enter without a visa and stay up to a year by extending your visa.

- Guatemala, dont have the particulars but know many who live there as perpetual tourists.

Do I need to post more countries?

The problem is I have about 46 kilos which I am allowed to check in on my flight from Singapore. But none of the airlines flying to Singapore will let me take that much I am in this situation because the airline told me that I could move my flight from Singapore to Bangkok if I needed to, and now when I call them to do it they tell me it is not allowed.

Hat Yai to Singapore is easily done on the bus. Lots of good agents to buy tickets from. I use Hat Yai Variety Tour opposite Lee Gardens in downtown Hat Yai. Their prices are the fairest I've seen(yes different agencies, different prices). They speak basic English and you can give them a call at 074-351-280 or 074-351-281.

Oh, maybe the rules have changed again, and nobody bothered to inform the persons involved ...?

Yep, they did. The rules changed and nobody was informed. TIT!

Trust me, we've asked EVERY TIME we've renewed our visas about our daughter and whether she needs a non-imm. O visa. And the response has always been NO. We have no problem paying for a visa for our daughter, but we've been told repeatedly by immigration that she doesn't need one for herself.

I think I am getting tired of repeating this. But I'll say it again. If your child has been in the country for more than 90 days in the last 180 days under the visa exemption, your child technically can't enter the country for another 90 days without a visa. This is straight from the immigration agents at the border. With wrangling, phone calls and payment of tea money, my son got in.

Don't trust your local immigration office, they won't help you at the border. The border immigration guys are the ones who make the rules. This is a major change from times past and this is why I posted this. When visa exemptions were unlimited, this was not a problem. It is a now a problem.

When deciding whether your child needs a visa or not, ask yourself this question. Do you want the entry of your child to be totally dependent on whether the border immigration agent is in a good mood or not?

And just to make things clear: Your child is not "under your visa" unless you share a passport with your child. Since your child has her own passport, she is not under your visa. But that's what immigration calls it, if both parents have a visa, children under 7 don't need one.....again that's the past.

My daughter (farang) was born in BKK and is now 3 years old. From the time she first started travelling at 3 months of age, we've always been told by immigration that she does not need a visa and that she travels under my visa (non-immigrant O Multiple Entry). Everytime we go to leave Thailand, they always look at her passport and say that she has overstayed but once I tell her that she is my daughter (we have different surnames as I have kept my maiden name while she has her fathers surname) they just take her passport, stamp it, scribble something in thai underneath the stamp and send us on our way. We've also been told that she doesn't need a visa of her own until she is 7 years old. One thing I also do carry is her thai birth certificate with her passport just to prove I am her mother, so I don't know if that is why we've never had problems in the past with immigration.

We don't travel again until July, and my visa isn't for renewal until september - but will the new changes affect my daughter in anyway (like 3 year olds NOW do need a visa?) or will she still be able to travel under my visa as we have done in the past?

Thanks,

Di

Yours is exactly the situation why I posted. They say the kids are under our visa, but they get a visa exemption stamped in their passports. The rules say that you get no more than 90 days in 180 days under that exemption.

That's the problem. When we entered Thailand, they looked at my son's passport. They saw the stamp in October and the exit stamp and knew he was way over 90 days. They said they couldn't stamp him in and then the wrangling began.

My advice, on your trip outside, get your daughter a tourist visa at the min so they will let her in. If you can get her a Non-immi O, try to do that. When I had asked in the past for one, they said not for under 7's but maybe they have changed their policy.

Perhaps I was rather harsh in my comments, but you have to think laterally

in these situation, if you are to survive.

Why not a tourist visa for your children?

Then there is no 90/180 day counting.

After that try to minimise their travel to locations where you can

get a suitable visa.

As George pointed out, children are generally treated with consideration

by the Immigration officers.

Or, not be here at all.....remember, it's my choice to be here or not to be here. If a country is going to change its rules on a whim, it doesn't really want people to be here, I think.