You can have a responsible border immigration policy, whilst ensuring tourism is thriving, and preserving the culture of the country. All are interlinked. Thailand in it's quest to promote more tourism and longer term stay the number of tourists have fallen, income from tourism has also fallen. So if the solution is to pack them in like sardines then it's been a failure, and a cost to the culture of Thailand. Then a further cost to police the criminal element, to keep the country safe, scams, to try and keep up with infrustucture adds a cost that then becomes burden. The country is not only losing it's culture and heritage, crime is out of controls, locals are fed up, drugs are rife, and the level of scams is out of control. You speak that Thailand relies on foreign labour, whilst true ... it is in the sector of low paid work. Thailand is still a developing country. No matter what luxuries you see, the wages people are making is extremely low for the vast majority. Thailand, like many other developing nations (eg India) protect their workers from outside capitalistic vultures. However, you are now seeing an encrosion on this too - with foreign workers now abusing the systems to open business, working openly in what are protected areas for Thais.
