Story Of My Thai Citizenship Application

[Dogmatix]

4 hours ago, onthemoon said:

We mean we cannot keep the cake and eat it too? How disappointing... 

Don't we all want to eat it too?

[Marcati]

On 5/8/2022 at 3:54 PM, Dogmatix said:

Seems they still have some way to go to get the electronic working for anyone, apart from perhaps an odd day here and there. The second gen system was a massive investment including the alleged graft. It is a shocking waste of taxpayer money to just leave it idle depreciating all the while. By the time they get it up and running consistently, if they ever do, it will probably be obselete and ready for a new corrupt tender to replace it like the notorious airport explosive scanners that never really worked properly and were replaced after a couple of years trying to use them.  

My wife and I just came back from overseas on April 7th.  She has a brand-new 10 year Thai passport.  When we were approaching Immigration an officer immediately directed her to the e-gates.  No issue at all.  The template for the passport that is loaded into the system is the same for anyone in Thailand so whether or not you were born here or are naturalized should have nothing to do with it.  Strange......

[asiaexpat]

Arkady, I hear you, but when one makes the choice to become Thai it effects many things. My sons, educated and trained in the USA, applied for jobs in BKK, the offers came with Thai salaries  which were 60% of foreigner salary for the same job. With BPS it is not the kids nationality but the parents that count. 

[Arkady]

5 hours ago, asiaexpat said:

Arkady, I hear you, but when one makes the choice to become Thai it effects many things. My sons, educated and trained in the USA, applied for jobs in BKK, the offers came with Thai salaries  which were 60% of foreigner salary for the same job. With BPS it is not the kids nationality but the parents that count. 

It would make more sense, if the parents were studying there, rather than their kids, but there we are.  Sorry to hear about your kids.  You mean they applied for teaching jobs in Thailand?

[Arkady]

To follow up on my posts re BPS it seems that they do have some flexibility re classification and admission of dual kids with two Thai parents, contrary to what I was told initially.  I suspect they are wary of international applications from kids who are essentially Thai, growing up in a monoglott household, but have a foreign passport for some reason. For example I had a staff member who had a US passport because she was born there but moved back to Thailand as a baby.  Her kids would also be entitled to US nationality.  Some of these kids might not have good enough English skills for an international school and I can understand that putting them on a foreign quota could be problematic. I have heard of quite a few cases of this type.

[Me Panhar]

This topic has been so helpful, it's great. I expect it will continue for many years to come!

 

Does anyone remember what documents were required for the MOI interview and the Oath?

Specifically if uninterrupted visa and work permit was checked for the 3 years prior to either of those events.
NIA was March 2022  so I have at least a year or two to wait for the MOI interview.

 

Thank you

 

[david143]

Just now, Me Panhar said:

This topic has been so helpful, it's great. I expect it will continue for many years to come!

 

Does anyone remember what documents were required for the MOI interview and the Oath?

Specifically if uninterrupted visa and work permit was checked for the 3 years prior to either of those events.
NIA was March 2022  so I have at least a year or two to wait for the MOI interview.

 

Thank you

 

@ MOI take all original Documents with you, hardly they check but keep with you is necessary
@Oath : bring Blue background pictures and Wear a suit , and @ SB follow the Narration in front of HM King Photo , depend on your religion holy book.

that's all

[Arkady]

9 hours ago, david143 said:

@ MOI take all original Documents with you, hardly they check but keep with you is necessary
@Oath : bring Blue background pictures and Wear a suit , and @ SB follow the Narration in front of HM King Photo , depend on your religion holy book.

that's all

Absolutely right.  Bring originals of all books.  My experience was the MOI was happy to see the handful of books in my hand and just said that's OK without without looking at them.  For the oath SB needed copies of them and I had to pay them something a small amount to make copies because they hadn't warned me they wanted them.  So best to ask current practice.  They also finger printed me again to see, if I was the same Arkady they had finger printed a few years earlier. 

 

There are only 3 religions on offer, Buddhist, Christianity and Islam and no option for a secular or humanist oath.  If you are another religion or an atheist, just take the Buddhist one without making a fuss and show you respect the national religion.  Mrs Arkady told them I wanted the Buddhist oath without giving me a change to answer, arguing that I was nominally a Christian but she had never seen me go to a church of my own volition, not including weddings, funerals or visiting churches of historic or artistic interest.  My justification is that I attended enough daily and Sunday church services at boarding school to last for the rest of my life. 

 

[khongaeng]

I agree with @Arkady.  Bring all the documents just in case.  However, my documents were never checked (not even my passport or any form of ID) after I finished the NIA interview all the way up until I was at the Khed getting my Blue Thai ID card.  Not a single one of my documents was checked at DOPA/MOI interview, Oath Ceremony, or when I picked up my naturalization certificate.  Throughout the entire time I maintained my work permit as is required.  My documents like yellow book and Work Permit were only checked again when I was at the Khed getting my blue ID card.

 

If I remember correctly, the Christian oath was quite generic, other than putting a hand on bible, the actual oath had nothing to do with God or Christian beliefs.  The Buddhist oath is much more involved requiring you to kneel before a shrine with incense in your hands.  

[Arkady]

Tomorrow's a big day for me, as I get to exercise my civic right to vote in an election for the first time in the Bangkok governor and councilor elections. It is also the first time in 9 years that these elections have taken place at all, which means there will be a lot of young voters also voting for the first time. You could argue that there is no one worth voting for but, in that case, it is still important to exercise civic rights and vote for whoever you think is the least bad candidate.

 

For those who have also completed the 5 year cooling off period and are in Bangkok I am told you have to bring along your own blue biro to reduce transmission of COVID via BMA biros.

[qualtrough]

I used my passport to cross a border for the first time at the Nong Khai crossing. When I approached the line an immigration officer waved me into the foreigner line, but I flashed by passport at him and he waved me back. For some reason he asked me if I had my foreign passport with me. I said no, which was  true and that was the end of that. It was nice not having to waste time and spend money on a visa for Lao. The money spend on that goes a long way in Lao. On the way back in the Thai immigration officer pointed me out to the others, such was the novelty. No need for Thai Pass either, that was nice.

[onthemoon]

11 hours ago, qualtrough said:

I used my passport to cross a border for the first time at the Nong Khai crossing. When I approached the line an immigration officer waved me into the foreigner line, but I flashed by passport at him and he waved me back. For some reason he asked me if I had my foreign passport with me. I said no, which was  true and that was the end of that. It was nice not having to waste time and spend money on a visa for Lao. The money spend on that goes a long way in Lao. On the way back in the Thai immigration officer pointed me out to the others, such was the novelty. No need for Thai Pass either, that was nice.

What did Lao immigration say when you showed them a Thai passport? 

[Dogmatix]

22 hours ago, qualtrough said:

I used my passport to cross a border for the first time at the Nong Khai crossing. When I approached the line an immigration officer waved me into the foreigner line, but I flashed by passport at him and he waved me back. For some reason he asked me if I had my foreign passport with me. I said no, which was  true and that was the end of that. It was nice not having to waste time and spend money on a visa for Lao. The money spend on that goes a long way in Lao. On the way back in the Thai immigration officer pointed me out to the others, such was the novelty. No need for Thai Pass either, that was nice.

Going through that crossing, I was waiting a long time to get my passport back on the Lao side, as they took the passports away and made people wait. I asked the Lao IO why the long delay and she said she had already haned back my passport. In fact she had handed it to a Thai tour leader who was about to get into a van with a clump of Thai passports in his hand. I ran up to him and managed to get mine back.  Can't imagine what hassles would have been involved, if he had gone into Vientiane with my passport.

 

I have been to all the neighbouring countries with my Thai passport with the exception Malaysia. Interestingly there is not much comment from the IOs in the neighbouring countries, other than an occasional "Sawadee kha" or similar pleasantery. 

 

[yankee99]

26 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

Going through that crossing, I was waiting a long time to get my passport back on the Lao side, as they took the passports away and made people wait. I asked the Lao IO why the long delay and she said she had already haned back my passport. In fact she had handed it to a Thai tour leader who was about to get into a van with a clump of Thai passports in his hand. I ran up to him and managed to get mine back.  Can't imagine what hassles would have been involved, if he had gone into Vientiane with my passport.

 

I have been to all the neighbouring countries with my Thai passport with the exception Malaysia. Interestingly there is not much comment from the IOs in the neighbouring countries, other than an occasional "Sawadee kha" or similar pleasantery. 

 

I thought at one time you only needed your thai id to enter Laos and Cambodia? 

[ubonjoe]

12 hours ago, yankee99 said:

I thought at one time you only needed your thai id to enter Laos and Cambodia? 

That is for a border pass that allows a 3 day stay in Laos. Not sure how Cambodia does the border pass.

With a Thai passport you get a 30 day visa exempt entry and 14 days for Cambodia.

[BKKBike09]

On 5/21/2022 at 7:37 PM, khongaeng said:

Bring all the documents just in case.  However, my documents were never checked (not even my passport or any form of ID) after I finished the NIA interview all the way up until I was at the Khed getting my Blue Thai ID card.  Not a single one of my documents was checked at DOPA/MOI interview, Oath Ceremony, or when I picked up my naturalization certificate.

Same here (DOPA interview was in Sep 2020 and RG in Nov 2021).

[david143]

1 minute ago, BKKBike09 said:

Same here (DOPA interview was in Sep 2020 and RG in Nov 2021).

Nov 2021 and now almost June 2022
no new RG for male candidates
i believe it will after HM birthday .
same for me and yankee brother we took oath in August 2020
RG published on 4th august 2021
 

[BKKBike09]

On 5/13/2022 at 8:15 AM, aidenai said:

The problem with rules, regulations and laws in Thailand is that there are only 2 options in regards to nationality.

 

a) You are a Thai national

b) You are a foreign national

 

There are no options such as

c) You are a naturalized Thai national

There's also the wrinkle that having an ID number that doesn't start with 1 or 3 means that some computer systems can't recognise the individual as a Thai national.  

 

Had that recently when trying to link my EasyPass to the new M-Flow system ... "only Thais can do that, foreigners have to use a credit card as payment method". I pointed out that I have a Thai ID card and, while the staff were sympathetic, bottom line was "Computer says No".

 

Plus of course the rules on voting rights do specifically exclude naturalised Thais from voting for 5 years after getting nationality. Which in some ways is the most egregious discrimination and should be challenged in the Administrative Court. "Taxation without representation" and all that. But equally it provides 5 years of grace from having to vote for any of the high-quality candidates that are usually on offer.  

[aidenai]

36 minutes ago, BKKBike09 said:

There's also the wrinkle that having an ID number that doesn't start with 1 or 3 means that some computer systems can't recognise the individual as a Thai national.  

I cannot sign up for Khonlakreung, Paotang or Raothiawduaykan. Don't know if it's a problem with my ID-card and de first name, middle names and last name OR that the relevant computer systems don't accept the 8 xx xx xxxxx xxx ID number.

[david143]

2 minutes ago, aidenai said:

I cannot sign up for Khonlakreung, Paotang or Raothiawduaykan. Don't know if it's a problem with my ID-card and de first name, middle names and last name OR that the relevant computer systems don't accept the 8 xx xx xxxxx xxx ID number.

i have all
Khonlakreung, Paotang or Raothiawduaykan
My ID also starts 81XXXXXXX

[aidenai]

34 minutes ago, david143 said:

i have all
Khonlakreung, Paotang or Raothiawduaykan
My ID also starts 81XXXXXXX

Thanks for your reply, david143. Guess it's a problem with my ID card. No problems getting a bank account, passport, etc. but if it's an online sign-up, it doesn't seem to work.

[david143]

Just now, aidenai said:

Thanks for your reply, david143. Guess it's a problem with my ID card. No problems getting a bank account, passport, etc. but if it's an online sign-up, it doesn't seem to work.

it could possible you tried when all the application filled up.
btw it shouldn't have trouble , if Phase 5 for 50/50 coming , you can try again

[BKKBike09]

23 hours ago, aidenai said:

Don't know if it's a problem with my ID-card and de first name, middle names and last name

The middle name could be part of the problem. My ID has first / middle / last but on some systems, when they put your ID in the card reader, only first / last show up, which causes problems because then your registered name is different from what shows on the screen.

[yankee99]

On 5/23/2022 at 8:41 AM, aidenai said:

I cannot sign up for Khonlakreung, Paotang or Raothiawduaykan. Don't know if it's a problem with my ID-card and de first name, middle names and last name OR that the relevant computer systems don't accept the 8 xx xx xxxxx xxx ID number.

I went to the local district office and had my middle name removed from my id.

 

Paotang is tricky i had to go to ktb and they registered everything but it still wasn't showing up at the hotel end. I then learned after the bank you need to register on a computer website sorry cant remember the site name

[Marcati]

On 5/23/2022 at 7:52 AM, BKKBike09 said:

Same here (DOPA interview was in Sep 2020 and RG in Nov 2021).

I just had my final interview at DOPA/MOI on Tuesday and they didn't check any documents when I arrived nor when we entered the meeting room for the interview.

 

Now it's just time to sit back and wait for all the signatures ????

[david143]

Just now, Marcati said:

I just had my final interview at DOPA/MOI on Tuesday and they didn't check any documents when I arrived nor when we entered the meeting room for the interview.

 

Now it's just time to sit back and wait for all the signatures ????

your Tuesday meeting

[Marcati]

1 minute ago, david143 said:

your Tuesday meeting

Thank you @david143 ????????

[david143]

Just now, Marcati said:

Thank you @david143 ????????

welcome brother

[yankee99]

1 hour ago, Marcati said:

I just had my final interview at DOPA/MOI on Tuesday and they didn't check any documents when I arrived nor when we entered the meeting room for the interview.

 

Now it's just time to sit back and wait for all the signatures ????

Hi congratulations!

 

when was your NIA interview 

[Marcati]

24 minutes ago, yankee99 said:

Hi congratulations!

 

when was your NIA interview 

2020

Edited May 27, 2022 by Marcati