Have to leave the country or not?

[Davef2912]

Hello everyone, 

 

I have been in Thailand for a couple of years now and used to have Non-B and Non-IB visas in the past. More than a year ago I was engaged with an NGO and holding a Non-O visa. For the last year I have been on a education visa.

Recently I visited my home country and when I arrived at the suvannaphum immigration was at first denied entrance into the country.

The officer was curious how I could manage to finance my stay in Thailand for the last 2 years without any income.

In fact I work online and earn money this way.

However at that moment the immigration would only let me into the country if I bought a ticket back to my home country for in one month's time. Which I did.

The officers further explained that she would check if I left the country on that date or not and that I would be in 'big trouble' if I wouldn't and that I would only be allowed to come back to thailand with a Non-B visa and paperwork that is going to employ me.

All of the above while still being on legal and not expired ED Visa.

 

I asked at the school where I study thai language and where I got the visa from if they have heard of a story like this and was told, that they had an american gentleman on his first thai visa ever which was an ED-visa from my school. He frequently went back to to the US to look after his business there and at one day when coming back visa Suvannaphum airport was denied entrance to the country. He then flew to Hong Kong and to Chiang Mai and got into the country without trouble.

 

 

More than 2 weeks have passed and I found a company which is going to employ me and I am going to get a Non-B visa. The paperwork however will not be ready in time until the date of my flight back to my home country which brings me to my question:

 

Do I really have to leave the country just because the officer told me so even though my visa is not expired ?

 

or

 

could I wait until the documents are ready, then go to Penang instead of my home country and get the B visa from there?

 

 

Anyone ever experienced something like this? And how serious do I have to take verbal threads by the immigration staff despite having no comment or note in my passport and my visa still being valid until the mid of November?

 

Thanks for any feedback!

[elviajero]

34 minutes ago, Davef2912 said:

Do I really have to leave the country just because the officer told me so even though my visa is not expired ?

You have to leave on or before the admitted to stay date stamped in your passport, unless you apply for an extension of stay.

[Eff1n2ret]

1 hour ago, Davef2912 said:

However at that moment the immigration would only let me into the country if I bought a ticket back to my home country for in one month's time. Which I did.

The officers further explained that she would check if I left the country on that date or not and that I would be in 'big trouble' if I wouldn't

Utterly bizarre. I don't believe that Immigration Officers working on entry control-points at airports like Suvarnabhumi keep files on the passengers they have dealt with. She will have forgotten about you 5 minutes after you left. She probably suspected that you were working illegally but couldn't be bothered to do the paperwork to refuse you entry. Maybe it was close to the end of her shift, or she just hasn't a clue.

[JackThompson]

1 hour ago, Davef2912 said:

Recently I visited my home country and when I arrived at the suvannaphum immigration was at first denied entrance into the country.

The officer was curious how I could manage to finance my stay in Thailand for the last 2 years without any income.

All you needed, by law, was 20K Baht in cash to show, plus your valid-visa, and the address where you would be staying.  As to proving you don't need to work illegally while here, I would bring proof of how you earn your money in the future (if coming in on TR or ED) - though she probably would likely have switched to some other line of attack or denied the paperwork was genuine.  

 

If you avoid airports and Poipet, you won't have to deal with these rogue IOs creating problems where none exist.  I believe it is worth the trouble to fly to a neighboring country, and enter by land.  Perhaps the Chang Mai airport is OK, given the lack of horror-stories there, backed up by your school's account of the student who re-entered there from Hong Kong.

 

1 hour ago, Davef2912 said:

... at that moment the immigration would only let me into the country if I bought a ticket back to my home country for in one month's time.

I hope that ticket was not too expensive or is refundable.  As there is no legal basis for requiring that ticket-purchase, it would seem that they just wanted to inflict pain on a foreigner, to satisfy their hate.  Reports of these verbal threats and illegal forced-ticket purchases are becoming more common.

 

Airport immigration have been reported to tell all sorts of lies about non-existent visa-rules to incoming travelers, but they usually leave a "legal looking" paper-trail in the stamps they put in passports, to cover themselves.  Given this, what is the "permitted to stay" date they stamped in your passport? 

 

As long as you steer-clear of lawless areas like Airports and Poipet Immigration, that stamp should be respected. Domestic flights will not be a problem, as Airport-Immigration is not involved.

[BritTim]

There is certainly no legal requirement to depart before the end of your current permission to stay (extended if applicable).

The immigration official may have added an annotation to your record in immigration's system. Conceivably, on exit or a future entry to Thailand, the annotation could be read and result in problems. The annotation could well refer to suspicion of illegal working. As a practical matter, I think only officials at Suvarnabhumi are likely to take any notice.

As an aside, Non Ed visas are often regarded as a good way to stay in Thailand. Personally, I think if you are going in and out, they are a bad idea. Many officials will infer that you are not a serious student if regularly skipping lessons.

[Davef2912]

The stamp in my passport would still allow me to stay in the country until mid November.

[elviajero]

57 minutes ago, Davef2912 said:

The stamp in my passport would still allow me to stay in the country until mid November.

That date is when you must leave, or extend your stay. No other date is important.

 

[Davef2912]

Furthermore one of the officers at Suvannaphum Immigration said that I 'could not do like that' (meaning only leaving Thailand to extend me visa in a bordering country) but would have to 'go back to my home country once a year.' The other officer present said that I would have to leave the country at least once a year to another country which shares no border with Thailand.

 

Wondering where Thai Immigration takes the right from to tell me where I have to go or not....

[ubonjoe]

4 minutes ago, Davef2912 said:

Wondering where Thai Immigration takes the right from to tell me where I have to go or not....

They don't have the right. It seems to be their opinion more than anything else since there are no rules to back it up.

[JackThompson]

5 hours ago, Davef2912 said:

Furthermore one of the officers at Suvannaphum Immigration said that I 'could not do like that' (meaning only leaving Thailand to extend me visa in a bordering country) but would have to 'go back to my home country once a year.' The other officer present said that I would have to leave the country at least once a year to another country which shares no border with Thailand.

 

Wondering where Thai Immigration takes the right from to tell me where I have to go or not....

Vietnam doesn't share a border with Thailand but, evidently, this was not considered far enough away a few months ago.  A person arriving on a flight from Vietnam, after 7 months out of the Thailand, was accused of "coming to work" because he had stayed for several months in Thailand in the past.  Only his work-permit for Vietnam saved him.

 

Another person arriving direct from his "home country" in the USA, after around a year out of Thailand, was denied entry because he had spent several months in Thailand in the past, and didn't have enough cash in his wallet to show (granted, this is at least a "real rule" - but why question him at all, if he had "gone home" like a good boy?)

 

Apparently, these rogue-IOs make up fresh lies for each person they decide to arbitrarily harass.  They even contradict themselves, as they invent new laws, which they wish existed.  It would be amusing to compile a comprehensive list of all the lies told to travelers at Poipet/Aranya and in Airports. 

 

The ringleaders of this clique must have some good elite-connections to keep their jobs, considering the harm they are doing to Thailand's reputation.

Edited October 15, 2017 by JackThompson