Story Of My Thai Citizenship Application

[Arkady]

46 minutes ago, GarryP said:

That is frightening. Rejection  for technical errors that should have been spotted by SB. That would be devastating. 

 

My problem was a mistake made by SB who referenced the wrong clauses in the Nationality Act in a misguided but well-intentioned attempt to get me exemption from singing, against my express wishes, as I didn't believe I was entitled to the exemption and I turned out to be right. That cost me a delay of 6 months as my application was knocked back to SB to re-check my qualifications as well for SB to correct their mistake in the covering letter.  I had to make several visits to SB and the MOI and update some of the application documents, repeat the SB interview with the SB director and sing for him again, as well as redo the Knowledge of Thailand test for some reason.  A  couple of those who were rejected outright were applicants who applied with less than 5 years PR, as the Nationality Act is not specific on what counts as 5 years residence and the MOI had, previously accepted some applicants with less than 5 years PR.  For the others I don't know why they were rejected but it was definitely for technical reasons.  As far as I know, no one is ever rejected just because they don't like them.  There always has to be a legal reason.  If the problem with your application is discovered at the MoI interview stage, you will normally be rejected outright and particularly if the mistake or deficiency in qualifications is discovered by the interview committee rather than the MoI staffers, who will sometimes let very minor things pass by.  I was lucky in that the MoI discovered SB's mistake in the covering letter when they were preparing to put me on the interview list but I might have been rejected anyway, if I had not gone to meet the MoI dept head on the recommendation of one of the SB officers and explain the situation which convinced her it was the police's fault, not mine. 

 

Knowing what can go wrong when your application is processed by police who do nothing but process citizenship applications all day should make anyone think twice about entrusting their application to police or other officials who have never done even one before.  

[ThaiCitizen]

Thanks Arkady, some food for thought there.

[Big Guns]

For Red Horse's benefit my interview with MOI was in August 2016 and my oath is next week.

[red horse]

For Red Horse's benefit my interview with MOI was in August 2016 and my oath is next week.

Thanks a lot


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[red horse]

My interview was in may 2016 and I am still waiting for oath


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[Arkady]

15 hours ago, ThaiCitizen said:

Thanks a lot Arkady! I went to the SB in BKK, who emphatically told me to take it to the Amphur, not the SB policeman. I'll get the docs ready, then phone Bkk and ask again. I think it might be more of a hassle travelling down to Bangok whenever required, especially with family and Thai people vouching for me.

 

I had a look at what is on SB's website currently and it seems to be the same verson of guidelines that were published in Oct 2009 http://www.sb.police.go.th/AA/production/uploads/doc/1_06062553.pdf. In para 18 they tell you to apply to SB in Bangkok with no mention of what to do, if your address is in the provinces.   There may be something more specific in one of the other files there for download but I haven't combed through all of them.  In my own archive I have found a file I downloaded before I applied which was everything in one long pdf file I think naturaliziation.pdf . On page 2 1.2 (5) you will see that applicants residing in the provinces were directed to apply to provincial police. If this has changed, there must be something in writing about it, given the highly bureaucratic nature of Thai police.  It would be worth asking the SB in Bkk if they can tell you where to find it online or send you a copy by LINE which they all use.

 

Armed with that, if you can get it,  and copies of the other stuff on the SB website you should approach your amphur and tell them you wish to apply and see what their reaction is.  It is quite possible that the MoI has restructured things due to the impracticality of making provincial police handle applications and there may have been complaints from people who found that provincial police refused to handle their applications.  District offices have to handle nationality verifications and applications by hill tribes and displaced Thais, so they are theoretically better positioned to help than provincial police, if they are competent and willing, which must be a big if in most cases. I would think you would have a better chance if your amphur is in the city of Khon Kaen but realistically the odds may be close  to zero, if you live in the sticks, where it is usually a huge challenge just to get a yellow tabien baan.

 

Since there is only one dedicated department which is in Bkk and is not overworked and there are very few applicants every year, it would make better sense to make everyone apply in Bkk, which I think does, in fact, happen with PR. In that case the the process is more streamlined (even the documentation requirements are more burdensome). For PR I remember going to Immigration once to file the application and was then called for two separate interviews and that was that.  I lost count of the number of trips I had to make to SB for citizenship and I made four visits to the MoI including the panel interview and one trip for verification of documents.

 

Good luck.

 

 

[ThaiCitizen]

On 5/10/2017 at 10:25 PM, Arkady said:

 

No. You need the stamp of the translation agency which has to carry their name, address and telephone no.

What I mean is that there is no “certifying body” for translators in Thailand, so theoretically ANYONE can buy a stamp, with their name and address/phone number on it. All those translation agencies that advertise as, “certified” are misleading people. I. or my wife could call ourselves a translation agency.

[YetAnother]

is it true that there is a quota by country ? and that quote is simply the total allowed /country ? in other words USA,India,China each have the same as the Maldives ?

[Arkady]

23 minutes ago, ThaiCitizen said:

What I mean is that there is no “certifying body” for translators in Thailand, so theoretically ANYONE can buy a stamp, with their name and address/phone number on it. All those translation agencies that advertise as, “certified” are misleading people. I. or my wife could call ourselves a translation agency.

 

I think you are right but they will still want to see the translator's stamp, even though it is quite meaningless.  Of course, anyone can demand notarisation by the MoFA.  Their English can rather spotty in my experience, having found a number of glitches they overlooked in various translations, but it is an additional level of scrutiny.   I once needed to do a translation from Thai to English and I wanted it in decent English, not the gibberish you get from most translation agencies.  So I did it myself, as you suggest.  I was having Thai lessons from a teacher who came to my house in those days and asked her, if she was able to certify my work.  She had a quick look at it, pronounced it perfect and stamped it with her own translation agency stamp that she produced from her handbag.  Job done.

[ubonjoe]

1 minute ago, YetAnother said:

is it true that there is a quota by country ? and that quote is simply the total allowed /country ? in other words USA,India,China each have the same as the Maldives ?

For citizenship there is no quota.

You are confusing it with permanent residency. There is quotat for it that is set each year. Normally it is100 per country.

[Arkady]

21 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

is it true that there is a quota by country ? and that quote is simply the total allowed /country ? in other words USA,India,China each have the same as the Maldives ?

 

No, there is no quota for citizenship applications. As Joe says, you may be thinking of permanent residence which has an annual quota of 100 per nationality and 50 for stateless persons under the 1979 Immigration Act.  This dates back the predecessor of the current Immigration Act in the early 1950s when they decided to pull the shutters down on mass Chinese immigration due to fears that the new Red China government would infiltrate a 5th column of communist agitators amongst the immigrants and destabilise the right wing military government of the day's grip on power. The migration of poor rural villagers to Bangkok was gathering pace and the country no longer needed Chinese coolie labour.  Before that PR had been readily given to migrants who could prove they had a profession or trade, was the only visa of more than 3 months' duration and gave holders the automatic right to work.  Thus the quota effectively put the kybosch on Chinese immigration and the fee was increased fourfold as well.  Chinese (including Taiwanese who count towards the Chinese quota) are till this day the only nation affected by the quota.

 

Since the mindset has always been that citizenship applicants have to get PR first, as the law was only amended in 2008 to allow males with Thai wives to bypass PR, it has never been thought there was a need to impose quotas on citizenship applications. The numbers are so small, even after the 2008 amendment, that it is extremely unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.

[Arkady]

A nonsense post has been deleted.

[GabbaGabbaHey]

21 hours ago, Arkady said:

 

the law was only amended in 2008 to allow males with Thai wives to bypass PR

Out of curiosity, do non-PR holders applicants to naturalization have a different set of requirements, things like a blank criminal record, DNA paternity test or health certificate, which PR holders had to provide to be granted PR? I would be surprised if not. Since I am applying for naturalization as PR holder with less than 5 years of PR, and I was not asked for these, I assume the process still makes a difference between non-PR holders and PR-holders no-matter how old your PR is.  

 

[SWW]

On 5/10/2017 at 10:02 PM, GarryP said:

That is frightening. Rejection  for technical errors that should have been spotted by SB. That would be devastating. 

Yes, terrifying. I'm still waiting for my MoI interview, and I put my application together in December 2015. If my application was bounced after an interview I've been waiting for for almost 18 months, I don't know what I'd do next. On top of my wife's health issues, this is very worrying indeed.

[Arkady]

2 hours ago, SWW said:

Yes, terrifying. I'm still waiting for my MoI interview, and I put my application together in December 2015. If my application was bounced after an interview I've been waiting for for almost 18 months, I don't know what I'd do next. On top of my wife's health issues, this is very worrying indeed.

At least some of the technical errors I was referring to were created by SB, rather than just overlooked by them. I believe that the fact that the relationship between them and the MoI is or was rather frosty is a major contributory factor.  The MoI is rather haughty towards the police which means that SB might just take a guess at something and hope for the best, rather than pick up the phone and risk being talked down to.  I had some first hand experience of this a few years ago but I won't go into details here.

 

Anyway don't worry about it.  Most people do get through with only small hiccups like being told to chase after another document or something. It is only a very small percentage that get rejected and then only because there is something lacking in their qualifications.  Also the current regime at the MoI under the military has forced the bureaucrats to work faster with greater more transparency on citizenship to distinguish themselves from the previous political regimes who held things up deliberately in the hope of collecting bribes.   The relationship between SB and the MoI might even have improved. 

 

   

 

[GabbaGabbaHey]

22 hours ago, GabbaGabbaHey said:

Out of curiosity, do non-PR holders applicants to naturalization have a different set of requirements, things like a blank criminal record, DNA paternity test or health certificate, which PR holders had to provide to be granted PR? I would be surprised if not. Since I am applying for naturalization as PR holder with less than 5 years of PR, and I was not asked for these, I assume the process still makes a difference between non-PR holders and PR-holders no-matter how old your PR is.  

 

For those interested, I read an answer in below link saying" it turns out that applications under this rule are processed the same as applicants with PR without distinction".

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/876707-realistic-chances-of-obtaining-thai-citizenship/?page=3

 

[Arkady]

1 hour ago, GabbaGabbaHey said:

For those interested, I read an answer in below link saying" it turns out that applications under this rule are processed the same as applicants with PR without distinction".

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/876707-realistic-chances-of-obtaining-thai-citizenship/?page=3

 

 

Males apply for naturalisation under the same section of the Nationality Act whether they apply on the basis of PR or on the basis of marriage to a Thai.  However, there is a sub-clause giving males married to Thais exemption from the requirements for 5 years' residence in the Kingdom and knowledge of the Thai language.  Therefore they have to be treated the same, apart from those two exemptions.  Women married to Thais apply under a separate section of the Act and are therefore treated differently.  Immigration has continuously raised the bar on PR applications and made it a more burdensome process than citizenship but SB and the MoI have not taken the same route with citizenship, probably because all naturalisation applicants historically had PR already.  When I applied for PR in the late 90s the process was a lot less burdensome than it is today - no home country police clearance, no panel interview or requirement for knowledge of Thai, easy self-certification of documents.  The best was that you nearly always got your PR within 12 months of application. 

[onthemoon]

I have two more questions about the work permit and salary:

For the interview at the MOI, a work permit has to be presented again. Does it have to be the same work permit, or I can change companies after submission of the docs to SB?

Is a minimum salary of THB 80,000  per month still required, or is it not required any more as this was proven with the PND91 at the submission at SB?

TIA.

[GabbaGabbaHey]

1 hour ago, onthemoon said:

For the interview at the MOI, a work permit has to be presented again. Does it have to be the same work permit, or I can change companies after submission of the docs to SB?

If I understood well from earlier posts, it can be a different one, but you have to maintain continuity in your work history and this means get any new job in a very short time after you terminate the current one (ideally within one month). Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.

[onthemoon]

18 hours ago, GabbaGabbaHey said:

If I understood well from earlier posts, it can be a different one, but you have to maintain continuity in your work history and this means get any new job in a very short time after you terminate the current one (ideally within one month). Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.

The new job is no problem (I already have it and the application for this second WP has been submitted, while I still keep my current WP for now), but the salary will be less than THB 80,000.

[YetAnother]

one heck of a lot of time and effort; they can still revoke your citizenship at any time

[ubonjoe]

2 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

one heck of a lot of time and effort; they can still revoke your citizenship at any time

No they cannot.

It takes a lot to revoke it and it is a decision that has to be done at a ministerial level.

[GabbaGabbaHey]

On 5/14/2017 at 1:33 PM, GabbaGabbaHey said:

If I understood well from earlier posts, it can be a different one, but you have to maintain continuity in your work history and this means get any new job in a very short time after you terminate the current one (ideally within one month). Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.

To be precise, gaps seem possible. I just found the OP's comment in page 79: 

"Actually, you can have interruptions, so long as you have a valid WP when you first apply, and when you appear at the Interior Ministry. Following my IM interview, I hung on to a job I hated to keep my WP in effect, but I was not asked to produce it again. Prior to appearing at the IM, but after my interview at the SB, I changed jobs a couple of times, and there were gaps of a couple of months in between." 

[Arkady]

16 hours ago, onthemoon said:

The new job is no problem (I already have it and the application for this second WP has been submitted, while I still keep my current WP for now), but the salary will be less than THB 80,000.

 

This issue has come up before and some one actually asked the MoI who said that applicants are techically no longer qualified if they no longer earn the minimum salary at the time they come up for interview. However, they don't normally ask about your salary and the WP doesn't say what the salary is.  This is only likely to be a problem, if for some reason your file is sent back to SB for re-checking of qualifications which would require a new salary confirmation letter. It happens rarely, so I there is no need to be paranoid about it.  Most people change jobs for more money, so they are unlikely to be suspicious.  Make sure there is no gap between the old and the new WPs and demand to keep your cancelled WP, which is your right under the 2008 Working of Aliens Act, but take a copy before your surrender it, just in case you can't get it back. 

 

Normally they are only strict on checking that you have had continuous WPs from the start of the 3 year qualifying period.  I was summoned to the MoI 10 days before interview to check this because SB had decided not to submit a copy of my old WP, even though it covered most of the 3 year qualifying period, since I had only changed jobs a few months before applying.  I had given them copies of the old WP but they insisted it wasn't needed but it turned out that it was very much needed. The head of the department at the MoI combed through my old and new WPs, asked a couple of questions about the date of the job change and then told me everything was in order.  She added that she was glad this was the case because any gap in the WPs would have meant I was not qualified.  I think I actually had a gap of 3 days because the new company's HR department stuffed things up, despite my insistence there should be no gap.  I can't say how large gap they are willing to overlook but I would guess it would not be more than a month, if that. Of course, it depends on what level of scrutiny you are subjected to.  It seems that OP didn't get much scrutiny on this but I was subjected to the detailed scrutiny on continuity of WP, although this might have been because of SB's mistake in not submitting the copy of the old WP which may have raised a suspicion.

[Arkady]

15 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

No they cannot.

It takes a lot to revoke it and it is a decision that has to be done at a ministerial level.

Correct.  There is a detailed procedure for this and it is a fairly rare occurrence.  There used to be a lot of cases of Thai-Chinese losing their citizenship for staying in China for more than 5 years but these days involuntary revocations are most likely to occur as a result of a conviction for a serious crime like drug smuggling in Thailand or overseas.  It cannot be done on a whim or for minor offences in the way the cancellation of visas and blacklisting can be done.  Tthat is because the Immigration Act is rather vague about the reasons for revocation of visas which gives total discretion to the minister, whereas the Nationality Act is very specific about grounds for revocation of citizenship.

[Big Guns]

I made the oath at Special Branch yesterday. They said I should expect to wait about 3 months for the announcement in the Royal Gazette. What is the likely time frame at the moment between the announcement in the Royal Gazette and Special Branch creating the documents needed for the Thai national ID card?

[aidenai]

28 January 2016 announcement in the RG. Sent pictures to SB on 8 February 2016. Picked up my naturalization documents on 18 February 2016.

[ThaiCitizen]

 

Well here’s a summary of what happened in my provincial town. After phoning Bangkok Special Branch, they advised me to got to the local town house to see the “paw ton”. He told me to go to another police station 5 km away as that is who dealt with it. When there, they said to go to another police department next door to the amphur. There, they said to go back to the amphur! Feels very much like a wild goose chase. My wife has done some research and says it’s got nothing to do with the amphur and right enough, after phoning them to check this morning, he said nothing to do with him. So, they are not willing to do it ☹

Plan B, my wife insists on not contacting Bangkok but to go through her senior police officer(deputy commander) friend. Now he says to go to see his pal in ‘immmigration”! I think he thinks that it’s PR I’m after. My wife says that this is the first step and the Imm. Officer will check the documents then send them to another police buddy(SB, I presume) in Bangkok.

Personally, I want to contact Bangkok, or get this bigwig to do it and give them a kick up the a*se for giving the wrong information!

[Arkady]

5 hours ago, ThaiCitizen said:

 

Well here’s a summary of what happened in my provincial town. After phoning Bangkok Special Branch, they advised me to got to the local town house to see the “paw ton”. He told me to go to another police station 5 km away as that is who dealt with it. When there, they said to go to another police department next door to the amphur. There, they said to go back to the amphur! Feels very much like a wild goose chase. My wife has done some research and says it’s got nothing to do with the amphur and right enough, after phoning them to check this morning, he said nothing to do with him. So, they are not willing to do it ☹

Plan B, my wife insists on not contacting Bangkok but to go through her senior police officer(deputy commander) friend. Now he says to go to see his pal in ‘immmigration”! I think he thinks that it’s PR I’m after. My wife says that this is the first step and the Imm. Officer will check the documents then send them to another police buddy(SB, I presume) in Bangkok.

Personally, I want to contact Bangkok, or get this bigwig to do it and give them a kick up the a*se for giving the wrong information!

 

First or all I would consider very carefully before trying to get someone to give SB Bkk a hard time for providing misinformation, unless you are very sure you are going to be able to get Thai citizenship without their help. You will certainly  gain nothing from that and might stuff yourself up royally. They are generally very helpful, know more about the topic of naturalisation than most other people on the planet and wouldn't intentionally misinform anyone.  My guess is that they misunderstood the question and thought it was about a look krung who has been living his life overseas as a foreigner and now wants to claim his Thai nationality.  In this case applying to the local amphur would be the right thing to do, as they have the ability to verify the Thai nationality of the applicant's Thai relatives and verify the links with them.  It seems pretty obvious that the amphur has no ability to process naturalisation applications and there is nothing in the Nationality Act or MoI guidelines that even hints this might be the case.

 

In your position, if I didn't want to contact SB Bkk again at this stage, I would call the MoI's nationality section.  They do answer the phone.  When I was waiting five hours for my interview at the MoI, the staff in the main office very kindly let me sit at an empty desk.  I sat next to a lady who, in addition to her desk work, had to answer a steady stream of phone calls from people, mainly hill tribes and other minorities it sounded like, who wanted to know how to apply for Thai nationality.  She was very patient and answered them all in minute detail.  I don't have the current phone number but you can find it on the MoI's website or by calling the switchboard.  They are part of DOPA, which also controls all the amphurs, and they are now at Lamlukka.  These are their precise coordinates within the Interior Ministry.

 

กลุ่มชนกลุ่มน้อยและสัญชาติ

ส่วนประสานราชการ

สำนักกิจการความมั่นคงภายใน

กรมการปกครอง

 

To me it seems pointless to try to use high level connections, who are not anywhere close to the department in question, to get information that you can far more easily get by yourself by picking up the phone and speaking to the right person.  You are quite likely to get more misinformation and you may well get yourself a self-appointed gate keeper who demands money for something over which he has zero influence. 

 

I would be surprised, if you don't eventually come to the conclusion that the surest way to get Thai citizenship will be to get on a tabien baan in Bkk and apply to SB Bkk but I hope I am wrong and I wish you well in proving me wrong.

 

[ThaiCitizen]

20 hours ago, Arkady said:

 

First or all I would consider very carefully before trying to get someone to give SB Bkk a hard time for providing misinformation, unless you are very sure you are going to be able to get Thai citizenship without their help. You will certainly  gain nothing from that and might stuff yourself up royally. They are generally very helpful, know more about the topic of naturalisation than most other people on the planet and wouldn't intentionally misinform anyone.  My guess is that they misunderstood the question and thought it was about a look krung who has been living his life overseas as a foreigner and now wants to claim his Thai nationality.  In this case applying to the local amphur would be the right thing to do, as they have the ability to verify the Thai nationality of the applicant's Thai relatives and verify the links with them.  It seems pretty obvious that the amphur has no ability to process naturalisation applications and there is nothing in the Nationality Act or MoI guidelines that even hints this might be the case.

 

In your position, if I didn't want to contact SB Bkk again at this stage, I would call the MoI's nationality section.  They do answer the phone.  When I was waiting five hours for my interview at the MoI, the staff in the main office very kindly let me sit at an empty desk.  I sat next to a lady who, in addition to her desk work, had to answer a steady stream of phone calls from people, mainly hill tribes and other minorities it sounded like, who wanted to know how to apply for Thai nationality.  She was very patient and answered them all in minute detail.  I don't have the current phone number but you can find it on the MoI's website or by calling the switchboard.  They are part of DOPA, which also controls all the amphurs, and they are now at Lamlukka.  These are their precise coordinates within the Interior Ministry.

 

กลุ่มชนกลุ่มน้อยและสัญชาติ

ส่วนประสานราชการ

สำนักกิจการความมั่นคงภายใน

กรมการปกครอง

 

To me it seems pointless to try to use high level connections, who are not anywhere close to the department in question, to get information that you can far more easily get by yourself by picking up the phone and speaking to the right person.  You are quite likely to get more misinformation and you may well get yourself a self-appointed gate keeper who demands money for something over which he has zero influence. 

 

I would be surprised, if you don't eventually come to the conclusion that the surest way to get Thai citizenship will be to get on a tabien baan in Bkk and apply to SB Bkk but I hope I am wrong and I wish you well in proving me wrong.

 

Arkady, as usual, thanks so much for your experience and wise advice.

Firstly, I agree with you about the policeman giving the SB a telling off. I would never actually ask for that.

Thanks for the info. On the MOI. We haven’t contacted them yet.

The latest is that my wife has found a woman in the local Amphur who seems to know what she’s talking about(famous last words!).  She says that the next step is to get an ID card, that matches my ‘tabien baan’ then she’ll check we’re married and live together. After this is done, which is seemingly very easy, she’ll check all the documents and send them to Bangkok Santibaan. So, it seems that the provincial Santibaan have nothing to do with the process. My wife said that some law changed last year but she doesn’t have any link to it.  I’m going to stick with this route for the moment before changing my address to one in Bangkok.