1 hour ago, elviajero said:

You are kidding? That is exactly what an IO's job is. They screen everyone entering the country.

Sure they screen everybody, that is their job. But they have clear reasons as to why they can deny you. They can't just make up something like "you had 6 visa exempts already, so i will not give you another", making rules like that is the job of other people.

So in the case that they want to deny entry, i think that's only possible for any of the reasons under Section 12. Did anybody ever see a denied entry stamp that didn't mention Section 12? I didn't.

Edited March 11, 20188 yr by jackdd

19 minutes ago, BritTim said:

I fully agree with your point that they have been cracking down (rightly or wrongly) on certain classes of long term tourists. Where I think we part company is over the consensus at the top about well heeled long term tourists. While I do not think all the senior officials are of one mind, I think there is agreement that people who can easily afford to spend time here without competing with Thais for employment or business should be at least tolerated, if not encouraged

I agree. They clearly don’t plan, at least yet, on stopping all long term tourists. There actions have been to reduce numbers.

 

21 minutes ago, BritTim said:

They would prefer that such individuals choose the long term tourist visa known as the Thailand Elite Easy Access visa.

I don’t believe immigration bosses give a stuff about the PE visa, and aren’t based on any evidence I’ve seen encouraging it. It’s a very limited market and the people behind it have probably figured that out by now.

 

24 minutes ago, BritTim said:

However, people who fall into the tolerated category who can get other kinds of tourist visas will also not be turned away ... or, at least, that is the intention.

I don’t think immigration do anything to encourage long term tourist visa users, but they certainly do tolerate a certain category.

1 hour ago, jackdd said:

Sure they screen everybody, that is their job. But they have clear reasons as to why they can deny you. They can't just make up something like "you had 6 visa exempts already, so i will not give you another", making rules like that is the job of other people.

Immigration Officers follow orders. Their current orders give them discretionary power to deny entry to anyone they consider is over using back to back visa exempt entries for the purpose of tourism. It could be any number of entries by air, and they have to impose a strict limit of two per year by land. That power comes from sections 12.10/16.

 

They can also deny entry to anyone that doesn’t have an appropriate way to fund their stay. So those staying long term as tourists can lawfully be denied entry under section 12.2. if they can’t prove an appropriate way of funding themselves.

 

Also immigrantion, with the backing of the Ministry, can deny entry to any person or group they want, by law, under section 16 of the Immigration Act.

 

Immigration don’t issue visas so the discretionary power to issue visas is with the embassies/consulates who regularly do apply limits.

 

No one holding a tourist visa has ‘entry clearance’ (automatic right to enter) so it’s up to IO’s to make the final decision on whether someone can enter.

 

Typical/genuine tourists are completely unaffected by this lawful discretionary power, and it’s only those ‘playing’ the system that get caught out.

Edited March 11, 20188 yr by elviajero

On 3/9/2018 at 6:53 PM, Happy enough said:

there seems to be no real consistency when tourists are getting pulled up on this. from what i have read on here it seems that some IO's on certain days will decide, right let's deny a tourist and you got unlucky. by their own visa rules, you were within the rules really and the fact they use no funds against people that show the funds, i think that's wrong. anyway, i would certainly keep that TM11 form with you as may well help. gone are the days of continuous back to back tourist and visa exempts. christ back in the day people used to just leave their passports at the wall restaurant in silom over night and pick them up next day all stamped up

Ha ha ha i was one of that crowd

17 minutes ago, elviajero said:

Immigration Officers follow orders. Their current orders give them discretionary power to deny entry to anyone they consider is over using back to back visa exempt entries for the purpose of tourism. It could be any number of entries by air, and they have to impose a strict limit of two per year by land. That power comes from section 12.10/16.

 

[...]

 

Also immigrantion, with the backing of the Ministry, can deny entry to any person or group they want, by law, under section 16 of the Immigration Act.

The law clearly states that the minister himself can deny you entry, not an IO, this means the minister does at least have to sign some paper which says that he denied your entry

Show me one example of a person who got denied entry under this section and who is not involved in serious criminal activities.

 

17 minutes ago, elviajero said:

They can also deny entry to anyone that doesn’t have an appropriate way to fund their stay. So those staying long term as tourists can lawfully be denied entry under section 12.2. if they can’t prove an appropriate way of funding themselves.

Yes, they can, but the law/order says 20k THB are enough, so if you have this in your pocket they can't. Of course the IO can do whatever he wants in the first step, but if you have more than 20k THB with you and appeal the decision they will most likely cancel the denied entry stamp.

Edited March 11, 20188 yr by jackdd

15 minutes ago, jackdd said:

The law clearly states that the minister himself can deny you entry, not an IO, this means the minister does at least have to sign some paper which says that he denied your entry

 

@elvajero is actually correct over visa exempt entries. A ministerial Order in 2014 told immigration officials to deny entry to those using back-to-back visa exempt entries as a way to stay long term in Thailand (qualified by a statement by the Prime Minister that this should be enforced flexibly). The effect is that officials have wide discretion over people entering visa exempt. The situation with tourist visas is very different. There are no Ministerial Orders that restrict entry with tourist visas, and a justification under Section 12 is required. Section 12 (2) is the popular choice, occasionally used without justification (though I do believe that is still very rare). 

36 minutes ago, jackdd said:

The law clearly states that the minister himself can deny you entry, not an IO, this means the minister does at least have to sign some paper which says that he denied your entry

Nonsense. They can sign orders giving power to immigration and their officers to deny a person or group.

 

44 minutes ago, jackdd said:

Yes, they can, but the law/order says 20k THB are enough, so if you have this in your pocket they can't. Of course the IO can do whatever he wants in the first step, but if you have more than 20k THB with you and appeal the decision they will most likely cancel the denied entry stamp.

Wrong. That 10K/20K rule applies to section 12.9, not 12.2. 

 

12.2 is the most common reason for denial as it is the easiest for the IO to back up. Having 10K/20K doesn’t satisfy section 12.2 which requires someone to prove they have the means to support their long term stay.

31 minutes ago, BritTim said:

A ministerial Order in 2014 told immigration officials to deny entry to those using back-to-back visa exempt entries as a way to stay long term in Thailand (qualified by a statement by the Prime Minister that this should be enforced flexibly).

 

Would it be possible to link to that ministerial order from 2014? As far as I was aware if back-to-back VE's reached 6 or more, further investigation may be required, but denial of entry was not a given. I could be wrong on this.

 

However, it may be the flexibility of the statement from the PM that I still know people using visa exempt entries every 60 days to enter and remain here for their 28/29/30 days. Every 60 days without a problem.

17 minutes ago, chrisinth said:

Would it be possible to link to that ministerial order from 2014? As far as I was aware if back-to-back VE's reached 6 or more, further investigation may be required, but denial of entry was not a given. I could be wrong on this.

I don’t know that it was a ministerial order, but immigration officers were issued with guidance notes regarding back to back visa exempt entries and it was made public.

 

Here is the text;

(Royal Emblem) Urgent
Addendum
For official usePolice Tel. 0 2286 0814
No. 0029.171/2076 Date: 24 June 2014
Subject: Guideline for inspection of citizen from certain countries that are not required to obtain a visa when entering the Kingdom of Thailand

 

To keep permission of entering in compliance with immigration law and provision concerned, it is deemed expedient to impose additional procedures of inspecting and permitting ordinary passport holders from certain countries who are not required to obtain a visa when entering Thailand for tourism purposes,
 

1. Information checking
1.1 Purpose of entering the Kingdom
The alien must enter the Kingdom with the sole purpose of tourism, and not for work. 1.2 Record of entry and stay within the Kingdom
1.2.1 A number of entry into the Kingdom
1.2.2 The alien must not enter the Kingdom by exploiting 30­day visa exemptions undertaking method “in­out” or called by foreigners as “Visa run”. Aliens use the advantage of Tourist Visa Exemption by leaving Thailand and returning immediately for the purpose of extending their stay, which is considered from the tourism point of view to be longer than necessary and not in line with the purpose permitted while entering country.
 

2. Reason to believe that entry into Kingdom is not for the purpose of tourism
2.1 Alien will be interviewed and requested to show evidence of the purpose of tourism
such as tickets, pocket money, booking slip, traveling plan.
2.2 The criterion as in 2.1 if deemed necessary to record as an evidence, the alien may be
required to fill out the form as attached in the annex hereto.
 

3. Reason to reject or permit entry to Thailand
3.1 Upon complete evidence of entering the Kingdom for tourism purpose and not for
working purpose, alien shall be granted for permission to stay for 15, 30 or 90 days as
set out in the bilateral agreements.
3.2 Without valid reason compiled to lack of evidence required by the immigration officer,
the alien shall be refused to enter the Kingdom, pursuant to immigration law provision.
For consideration of immigration officers,

 

The 6 entry flag is a separate tool used by immigration to highlight possible overuse of visa exempt entry. They are mainly interested in the time spent in the country rather than the number of entries.

 

37 minutes ago, elviajero said:

Here is the text;

(Royal Emblem) Urgent
Addendum
For official usePolice Tel. 0 2286 0814
No. 0029.171/2076 Date: 24 June 2014
Subject: Guideline for inspection of citizen from certain countries that are not required to obtain a visa when entering the Kingdom of Thailand

 

Does anybody have the original of this in Thai? I'm quite sure that the translation is faulty.

The first section is "Information checking", and then in this section they write "[...] must not enter the kingdom [...]" (what has this to do with information checking?)

And then the third section which is called "Reason to reject or permit entry to Thailand" they just say "Upon complete evidence of entering the Kingdom for tourism purpose [...] alien shall be granted for permission to stay"

These can be two contradicting statements, so which would be higher weighted? Probably the original Thai version of this document makes it clearer, but i couldn't find it.

1 hour ago, elviajero said:

12.2 is the most common reason for denial as it is the easiest for the IO to back up. Having 10K/20K doesn’t satisfy section 12.2 which requires someone to prove they have the means to support their long term stay.

Where are described these criterias for means? Because if 20K and 12.2 is not related, then amount of means for 12.2 must be described elsewhere.

13 minutes ago, Dmitry2222 said:

Where are described these criterias for means? Because if 20K and 12.2 is not related, then amount of means for 12.2 must be described elsewhere.

They aren’t described anywhere. It is up to the IO to decide whether or not the person has the “appropriate means”. 

4 hours ago, jackdd said:

Does anybody have the original of this in Thai? I'm quite sure that the translation is faulty.

I've never seen the Thai original. The translation is no doubt "faulty", but the basic intention/instruction of the guidance is clear.

 

 

11 hours ago, jackdd said:

Does anybody have the original of this in Thai? I'm quite sure that the translation is faulty.

Around the time all of this was being introduced, I did see some of the stuff in Thai. It was scarcely less confusing than the English translations, and different Thai announcements of the time contradicted each other. The important point is that, in early May of 2014, it was announced that there would be a crackdown starting August 12, 2014 on those trying to use in-out entries as a way of staying in Thailand. As this article makes clear, the original intention was much stricter than what was eventually implemented. The Prime Minister intervened to tell immigration to "apply the policy flexibly".

 

The important point to understand is that immigration officials have wide discretion to deny people visa exempt entry when they have already been in Thailand on tourist entries.

12 hours ago, elviajero said:

1.2.2 The alien must not enter the Kingdom by exploiting 30­day visa exemptions undertaking method “in­out” or called by foreigners as “Visa run”. Aliens use the advantage of Tourist Visa Exemption by leaving Thailand and returning immediately for the purpose of extending their stay, which is considered from the tourism point of view to be longer than necessary and not in line with the purpose permitted while entering country.
 

In the article that BritTim linked to they link to this: http://bangkok.immigration.go.th/en/base.php?page=readmore&id=1895&section=notice

So this is probably the Thai text which was used for the translation above

ห้ามมิให้ด่านชายแดนมีการอนุญาต Out-In ในลักษณะของ Visa run เพื่อให้ได้รับสิทธิในการอยู่ในราชอาณาจักรต่อเนื่องที่มิใช่เหตุผลเพื่อการท่องเที่ยว

Actually to me it sounds more like it is not allowed to get a repeated visa exempt if the purpose is something other than tourism.

Any native Thai speaker here who can clarify this?