Expelled no questions asked at Don Muang

[SteveK]

So how do you tell the difference between an immigration official who doesn't understand their own rules and one who is corrupt?

[elviajero]

5 minutes ago, pr9spk said:

So how do you tell the difference between an immigration official who doesn't understand their own rules and one who is corrupt?

Doesn't understand = stamps a tourist in for 1 year.

Is corrupt = give me 1,000 baht or you can't come in.

[JackThompson]

8 minutes ago, Ctkong said:

she said ‘ next month cannot enter country’. I still returned the next month and luckily got thru. Seems it is an adhoc situation depending upon the IO you met. 

Because she was not quoting a rule; she was making an idle threat.  The next IO didn't "feel" the same, so you got in. 

If there were actual rules, they could publish them, and enforce them consistently.  But published-rules cannot directly contradict immigration-law, so they can't go that route without sign-offs from some higher-ups who apparently won't cooperate with their agenda. 

As a result, this clique resort to what they are doing now, only enforceable at the points-of-entry and offices which they control.

 

3 minutes ago, pr9spk said:

So how do you tell the difference between an immigration official who doesn't understand their own rules and one who is corrupt?

See what is parked in their driveway - or their supervisor's driveway.

[Ctkong]

On 3/8/2019 at 3:23 PM, BritTim said:

They cannot do that. "Wrong visa" is not one of the listed reasons in Section 12 of the Immigration Act for denying entry. Nor will you find anything there about the immigration official being empowered to decide if a visa has been improperly issued to someone who should not qualify.

No use harping about the legalities in Thailand. Once my friend’s wife was traveling in a taxi from maesai to chiangrai airport by taxi. She was living in Bangkok then and visiting her relative’s wedding in maesai. Got stopped at police checkpoint just north of the airport. Interrogated by a police officer who insinuated that she was illegal alien even though she had her valid driving license( which can be used for air travel domestically)  with her. He demanded her ID card which she left at home. Asked for tbaht 20,000 to make the problem to go away. If not, she would only be released after somebody brought the ID card from Bangkok to be verified which meant a few days in the jail. Finally her husband asked her to just pay up and go. This shows the police are predatory finding any excuse to make a buck regardless the legality of the offense. 

[Ctkong]

On 3/8/2019 at 4:24 PM, Shaunduhpostman said:

Additionally nasty is the fact that they have written the untrue comment about insufficient funds in his passport. Until the guy gets a new passport other immigration officers may see this comment and  not be well disposed towards other legitimate entries in the future. If the mentality were towards fairness, I'd suggest that the OP try again at a border crossing to show he has sufficient funds and say there was a mistake at Don Muang and could he please have the entry deleted and signed in his passport. It might be worth giving it a go anyway, especially if the officer the OP meets at a land crossing seems helpful, intelligent and non-xenophobic/embittered/hostile etc. I have met such officers, even at Don Muang, so may  be worth a try-.

 

Its all a worry, even for people such as myself who have been here for years on marriage visas, in theory at least, immigration can do a no questions asked denial of entry. They set  precedents for this kind of thing by not even checking a guy's details and denying entry on incorrect assessments. But in the end that is culture here, it is acceptable to be nearly completely oblivious to details, to rules. Up-to-you/me is the real rule. And I have no problem with that other than I don't like it, it is their country and their karma if they want to treat visitors, foreigners and their own citizenry this way. It is negative and destructive to Thailand and there are many good Thai people who would also disapprove of this kind of treatment and have been through similar things with bureaucrats and officials. Nakiat chung loei! But as far this case, the rub is that embassies and consulates are unwilling to even suggest that a visa is only one thing, is only really a kind of an application for entry into the country, not a ticket. For those of us who stay here and travel here frequently there is no excuse for not knowing  that, but in all fairness Thai consulates and embassies should have warnings or disclaimers or even say an information sheet explaining how to be a successful entrant into the country, especially for people who are relatively new to all of this. Unfortunately, if they were honest in such an info sheet we'd find items like, "Stay out of the sun and apply skin whitening creams for at least a month prior to entry. Immigration officers often have a bias against against brown and tan skin tones." Even omitting such items, admitting there is a significant rate of people flying all the way out to Thailand only to be turned away held in detention would no doubt set them up for criticism and negative publicity abroad of course, so they ain't goin there. So we all have to pay our money and spend time in a hassle for visas and pretend it lets us into the country. It would make an interesting documentary to interview embassy chiefs of staff about cases such as the OP's and ask them what they think about it and what they think people are paying thousands of baht for and queueing and waiting days for, that don't they feel any responsibility to publicly call out immigration for creating problems for their clientel, ie, paying visa applicants?

I would say the embassies and consulates are doing their best to provide service .it is up to the IO to weed out the ‘bogus’ tourists separating the long stay tourists from the genuine tourists. I must say most IO decisions are on the spot because those people they deny entry are abusing the system with the incorrect visas. Living using back to back visas and with extensions. These are all alarm bells ringing and had been abused long enough. Finally thailand is taking action and rightly so. 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Ctkong

[riclag]

On 3/8/2019 at 12:10 PM, Tayaout said:

I will repeat for like 3 times now. They asked only 1 question and it was to sign the expulsion form. I think that anything under $10000 is not that much for money (and don't need to be declared) for someone planning to travel for 2 months. 

It appears through your comments you weren't  very inquisitive and that you didn't represent yourself properly it kinda sounds like you stood mute through the whole process

Sorry 

[freedomnow]

Has he got through yet to the The Land of Inconsistent and Constantly Changing Rules ?

 

Saturday matinee cinema cliffhanger.

 

I CAN HARDLY BREATHE.????

[Ctkong]

On 3/8/2019 at 5:22 PM, Tayaout said:

I know... Like I said I was clothed like a businessman and shaved but the others in detention were in flip-flop and t-shirt... So looks did not had much influence yesterday. 

I think the IO was alerted to your situation by your long stay in Thailand from oct last year on. Almost 5/6 months stay in Thailand in the last 6 months! So even if you have the funds, you are not entering with the correct visa. Anybody can see that. If the IO had let you in, then you would be in for another 2/3 months! And worse, you might even disappear from the radar from then on. Having the funds might even enable you to do just that. So I don’t blame the IO for denying you entry. You have got to see from the IO ‘s perspective too. 

[riclag]

On 3/8/2019 at 12:57 PM, Just Weird said:

It's not that "too much farang stay in Thailand", it's that too many foreigners deliberately abuse the tourist visa system.

Sorry! The Embassy's that issue the visa while vetting and screening the passport have a responsibility to weed out suspicious violators (abundance of TV) 

Edited March 9, 2019 by riclag

[JustAnotherHun]

4 minutes ago, Ctkong said:

I think the IO was alerted to your situation by your long stay in Thailand from oct last year on. Almost 5/6 months stay in Thailand in the last 6 months! So even if you have the funds, you are not entering with the correct visa. Anybody can see that. If the IO had let you in, then you would be in for another 2/3 months!

If it was so easy to see why did they issue a TV in Laos? seems a bit inconsistent to me.

[Ctkong]

1 hour ago, Nomad001 said:

We can speculate as to why 4 Chinese were in detention..My point I make is you'd never hear of some one being denied entry on a valid visa going back 4 or so years..Now we're hearing more and more and there's a lot more we don't hear about either..

I think there are a couple of reasons for the waffirmative actions on denied entry. Thailand is getting serious in weeding out the bogus tourists because of the large number of overstayers from all the previous administrations. Thailand is clearing house now which is a good thing for genuine retirees and tourists. We find more and more foreigners committing crimes because of lack of funds, drug abuse or simply lack of public civilness. Thailand seems to be getting lots of white trash recently . Maybe they deserved each other? 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Ctkong

[Date Masamune]

I'm not interested in conspiracy theories, biased opinions and whataboutery.
 
I know about the corruption within immigration and the police, how it works, and call it when I see it. However, I do not see corruption, specifically, when long term tourists are denied entry because they've spent years/months in the country, which in the written words of immigration is "considered from the tourism point of view to be longer than necessary and not in line with the purpose permitted while entering country." As long as the denial is made in accordance with immigration laws, which in the case of the OP it was, then there is nothing to complain about.

If you had followed immigration policy since 2006 you would have seen all the ways the Thai authorities have used to put a stop to visa runs, push visa runners to get Tourist Visas and then clamp down on the availability and use of TR's.
 
The same people that are now telling long term tourists to use land borders because of the hassles at the airport were, a few years ago, telling them to use the airports because of the hassles at land borders. What is happening at the airports is partly due to the change in MO of the long term tourist, and it is evidently under orders and lawful regardless of the nonsense spouted by you and others.
 
Just because corruption exists does not mean everything immigration do is corrupt. And as I've pointed out; financial gain is the aim of corruption, and the best you can come up with is a possible share of the detention fee!
 
Denying entry is no small event. It has to be signed off by the senior officer on duty and the airline have to be involved, and I'm pretty sure the fees collected for detention are accountable; so unless the whole of BKK/DMK immigration are 'in on it' your theory is weak at best. If they were not formally processing the denied entry and charging the alien a fee I could see how they maybe could pocket the fees. 
 
IO's are mostly just giving warnings about staying too long, and consulates are increasingly stamping passports saying the applicant has visited too much as a tourist; yet when immigration actually deny entry you/others bitch about corruption and unlawful enforcement. In case you missed the messages: the Thai authorities (not individual IO's) are clamping down harder on the use of VE/TR's to stay long term as a tourist.
 
The alternative to IO's having discretionary powers (rarely used) would be for the Thai authorities to set strict limits. Again.... why would anyone want that when it screws things up for all 'long term tourism' and doesn't help guys like the OP one little bit? The current situation is far from ideal but it's better than the alternative, which IMO would be a maximum of 6 months per year.
 
As things stand; a long term tourist needs to accept every entry could be their last and plan accordingly. Simply as that.

Not sure if we agree but I think the best thing would be to set a strict 180 day/year limit for “tourism”, like most rational countries do and let people who are allowed visa exempts to use them as they are intended. Multiple entries. To facilitate tourism and international commerce.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ctkong]

16 minutes ago, riclag said:

Sorry! The Embassy's that issue the visa while vetting and screening the passport have a responsibility to weed out suspicious violators (abundance of TV) 

I fInd embassies more compassionate towards those applying for visas. They must be thinking that they are helping the applicants the best they could hoping that the applicants are able to enter the country. Of course the fees paid do go some way in their motivation. 

[SteveK]

People who get repeated tourist visas to stay in the country for months and months on end are clearly not tourists, so I agree with them clamping down in order to weed out people who are abusing the visa rules, and in some cases, maybe even doing something dodgy. Had the OP been reading this site, he would have known that repeated tourist visas, especially with little or no time spent in your own country in-between, are a sure-fire way to pique the interest of Thai immigration.

 

There are lots of different visas for people who want to stay long term, and yes, you might need to show some financial information to get them but if you're broke, then what are you doing in Thailand in the first place?

 

Try getting back to back tourist visas in Canada without money to fund your stay and see what happens!

Edited March 9, 2019 by pr9spk

[AGareth2]

4 hours ago, Sheryl said:

 

Something does seem to be going on at Don Muang but to get a handle on it, can you tell us:

 

- where you entering visa exempt, on a SETV. METV, O visa or what?

 

-how long had you been in Thailand before this and how long were you out of the country?

 

 

and are you working?

[JustAnotherHun]

It's not the travellers fault if he gets a TV from a thai consulat or embassy and then is refused enter by an IO.

Why let him fly in, put him in detention and send him back to where he came from if only the embassies have to do their work properly. They just have to say "no, you can't get another TV now"

Edited March 9, 2019 by JustAnotherHun

[SteveK]

13 minutes ago, JustAnotherHun said:

Its not the travellers fault if he gets a TV from a thai consulat or embassy and then ist refused entry by an IO.

Why let him fly in, put him in detention an send him back to where he came from if only the embassies have to do their work properly. They just have to say "no, you can't get another TV now"

That would be common sense. Which is why it isn't happening. The embassy keeps the money for the visa, whilst the tourist is turned away and loses the money for the flights - sounds almost like a scam. It's up to you to know about Thailand's immigration requirements, I suppose, but then it's always been that way for travellers to any country, you need to do your own research to make sure you have the correct documents and visa. So just because your local embassy has given you a visa, doesn't mean that you will be admitted, especially if you have spent 90% of the last 6 months+ in the country. It's a pretty harsh situation, and the embassy SHOULD be telling you to apply for a different visa, not sure why they are not doing so.

Edited March 9, 2019 by pr9spk

[madmitch]

17 minutes ago, pr9spk said:

the embassy SHOULD be telling you to apply for a different visa, not sure why they are not doing so.

I think you answered this in your opening sentences!

[elviajero]

31 minutes ago, Date Masamune said:

Not sure if we agree but I think the best thing would be to set a strict 180 day/year limit for “tourism”, like most rational countries do and let people who are allowed visa exempts to use them as they are intended. Multiple entries. To facilitate tourism and international commerce.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree it’s what Thailand should do, but I don’t agree that it’s the best thing for long term tourists.

 

The main issue for the authorities is that the immigration system doesn’t currently count time spent in the country, therefore, it would down to manual counting by the IO. The last time they did something similar for visa exempt entries it was scrapped because it was impractical.

 

I can’t see them setting a limit until (if) the immigration system is updated and capable of counting the time spent in the country.

[elviajero]

1 hour ago, Ctkong said:

I fInd embassies more compassionate towards those applying for visas. They must be thinking that they are helping the applicants the best they could hoping that the applicants are able to enter the country. Of course the fees paid do go some way in their motivation. 

I think you’ll find consular services are only interested in the money and will issue as many visas as they can to anyone with the correct paperwork.

[Caldera]

3 hours ago, elviajero said:

If you had followed immigration policy since 2006 you would have seen all the ways the Thai authorities have used to put a stop to visa runs, push visa runners to get Tourist Visas and then clamp down...

Not only have I been following the mess that you're misnaming "immigration policy" since 2004, I've also had the pleasure to experience it first-hand. Unlike others on here who take a negative view looking back, all I can say is that I've had a great time despite their best efforts to make things difficult at times.

 

In all this time, there have been shills and apologists on here and elsewhere who have defended even the most nonsensical, comical or improper actions by Thai officials. For the most part, I find it amusing. Please keep it up.

 

Personally, I would be fine with a hard limit on the time spent on visa exempt, VOA and tourist visa entries per year. I think it's beneficial to have clear rules you can plan with.

[elviajero]

1 hour ago, JustAnotherHun said:

It's not the travellers fault if he gets a TV from a thai consulat or embassy and then is refused enter by an IO.

Why let him fly in, put him in detention and send him back to where he came from if only the embassies have to do their work properly. They just have to say "no, you can't get another TV now"

What should happen if the applicant has got a new passport to hide all the previous visas from consular services in order to get a visa?

 

No Thai visa gives the right to enter. The decision on entry is always down to the IO.

[Davo369]

Now I'm worried. I go Thailand 3 times a year. 6 weeks Christmas time, 5 weeks in may,4 weeks in September been doing this for 4 years. Is there a possibility I could get turned away? 

[elviajero]

7 minutes ago, Caldera said:

Not only have I been following the mess that you're misnaming "immigration policy" since 2004, I've also had the pleasure to experience it first-hand. Unlike others on here who take a negative view looking back, all I can say is that I've had a great time despite their best efforts to make things difficult at times.

Then you should understand that what is happening at the airports is just a part of the continuation of immigration policy to reduce long term tourism.

 

7 minutes ago, Caldera said:

Personally, I would be fine with a hard limit on the time spent on visa exempt, VOA and tourist visa entries per year. I think it's beneficial to have clear rules you can plan with.

If you’re having your great time using tourist visas then gobble, gobble.

 

Let’s hope you don’t get your way and ALL long term tourists are prevented from also having a great time.

[elviajero]

4 minutes ago, Davo369 said:

Now I'm worried. I go Thailand 3 times a year. 6 weeks Christmas time, 5 weeks in may,4 weeks in September been doing this for 4 years. Is there a possibility I could get turned away? 

Possible, but IMO — based on that visiting pattern — you would never be denied entry.

 

Nothing to worry about.

[Lovethailandelite]

1 hour ago, riclag said:

Sorry! The Embassy's that issue the visa while vetting and screening the passport have a responsibility to weed out suspicious violators (abundance of TV) 

They do. They refuse more visas or stamp you as a frequent visitor, which in effect, stops you getting more visas constantly. Then, the clever ones on here suggest the old 'Change your passport' trick. That starts the cycle again until it's picked up at entry on the Immigration computer terminal and your denied landing. Then the teers start from the usual suspects of how unjust it all is. Not too worry though, the game is very nearly up.

[Lovethailandelite]

2 hours ago, JustAnotherHun said:

It's not the travellers fault if he gets a TV from a thai consulat or embassy and then is refused enter by an IO.

Why let him fly in, put him in detention and send him back to where he came from if only the embassies have to do their work properly. They just have to say "no, you can't get another TV now"

They do and then are advised by people here to change there passport

[Caldera]

26 minutes ago, elviajero said:

Let’s hope you don’t get your way and ALL long term tourists are prevented from also having a great time.

We will simply need to adapt if and when the day comes. If you don't have a compelling reason to spend more than let's say 180 days per year in Thailand, like myself, it's as easy as spending more time elsewhere. If you do have a compelling reason, explore other visa options. Ultimately, I think it would only be a real problem for people who work in Thailand illegally on tourist visa. Personally, I don't believe all that many people do that nowadays.

 

[JustAnotherHun]

1 hour ago, elviajero said:

What should happen if the applicant has got a new passport to hide all the previous visas from consular services in order to get a visa?

 

No Thai visa gives the right to enter. The decision on entry is always down to the IO.

Even Thailand is using computers now. What's the problem do an online check when someone applies?

But that's not even the point. Here we talk about people who get a visa somewhere and are denied entry then because have "too many" stamps in their passport. Do officers at the embassies no have eyes to look at the passport before issuing something?

Better let de hatred farang fly in first, then deny entry, put him in detention and let him lose money for a ticket he would not have needed if the embassy or consulat have done it's job correctly.

But I see Thailand never can do something wrong, isn't it?

Edited March 9, 2019 by JustAnotherHun

[BritTim]

3 hours ago, Ctkong said:

I think the IO was alerted to your situation by your long stay in Thailand from oct last year on. Almost 5/6 months stay in Thailand in the last 6 months! So even if you have the funds, you are not entering with the correct visa. Anybody can see that. If the IO had let you in, then you would be in for another 2/3 months! And worse, you might even disappear from the radar from then on. Having the funds might even enable you to do just that. So I don’t blame the IO for denying you entry. You have got to see from the IO ‘s perspective too. 

Let's do a thought experiment here. Suppose the OP had been admitted by immigration. The following week, in a traffic stop (by another branch of the Thai police) the officer notices that he has been in Thailand on tourist entries for more than six months, decides he is in Thailand on the wrong type of visa, and has him deported. Would this be OK? I would argue that, whatever the opinion of the police officer, you should only be deported (or denied entry) according to Thai law. Immigration officials (and other police officers) should not be able to abuse their power to arbitrarily exclude people from Thailand, even if they feel the law is too lenient. I regard the use of Section 12 (2) to deny entry to be in the same class (though much less serious) as police death squads who take out criminals and political opponents they believe are not properly addressed by the law.