Thai immigration and the new visa costs

[george]

Immigration and the new Visa Costs

Interview with Police Lieutenant Colonel Banphot Kittivira, Inspector of Chiang Mai Immigration Office.

Citylife: How long have you been in Immigration?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: I have been at the Chiang Mai Immigration office for 15 years now. After graduating from Prince Royal’s College and then the police academy, I worked as a border patrol police for 7 years and then was transferred here.

Citylife: What does the immigration office do exactly?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: There are around forty of us here in total. Some work in administration, they sit in Building Two (the building on the left as you drive in here) and mainly they liaise with Bangkok and keep us up to date with changes in laws and in regulations and do most of the paperwork in dealing with different departments. Some work with the Chiang Mai airport, they deal mainly with people and vehicles coming into Chiang Mai from abroad. Some work in investigation and the criminal side of things, although we only deal with 40-50 cases per year. And then there is the visa section, of course, which is the team I am in charge of, and which deals the most directly with foreign nationals.

Citylife: As our readership is largely expatriate, can you tell us a bit about the types and groups of expatriates in Chiang Mai.

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: There are around 2,500-3,000 foreign nationals (excluding Burmese) who are registered with us here at immigration. The real figure of expatriates living in Chiang Mai must be at least double this figure. When I first started working here fifteen years ago, I felt that many of the expatriates were mainly men with Thai families. Many were retired; many were missionaries and ajarns at the Universities. Today the number has really increased and there are many more professionals. I am seeing many A-type applicants for work permits. These are the people who can get their work permits processed here in Chiang Mai within two days without having to send the matter down to Bangkok. Basically these are expatriates who work for companies which have a registered capital of over 30 million baht. The rest of the applicants need to follow much more long winded processes! Today I also notice that there are more women and families. By nationalities, I think that there are more Americans here followed closely by the British, Germans and Japanese.

Citylife: In working with people from so many countries every day, is your staff qualified to deal with this?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: I don’t know what you mean by qualified. All of us are police officers. That is what we have been trained for; we have just been transferred here to immigration. If you are asking whether we receive training, then of course we do. We are often attending seminars and training courses so that we can do our job better. Is it enough? No not really. And the most frustrating element is the fact that hardly any of us speak English. We have also received a couple of English training courses and have been taught what to say when dealing with visa problems. But we don’t know the language and people invariably ask us questions outside the scope of what we have learnt. The accents of people such as Scottish, French, and other accents from around the world are also very confusing and then there are those who don’t speak English at all. This makes our job very hard.

Citylife: So what are the problems which you face constantly?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: The cultural differences make things very difficult. Sometimes farang come here and expect the system here to be exactly like theirs at home, and they expect us to treat them and speak to them as though we were staff from their country. Sometimes people shout at us and tell us to go and learn English. Sometimes people shout at us and tell us that our system is useless and bad and that we are useless and bad. I don’t think this is right. If I was in the United States and had to go and see their immigration department I wouldn’t expect them to speak Thai and I wouldn’t expect them to know my culture, but I would instead conform to their culture. Sometimes people say that they come here to Thailand bringing lots of money and why aren’t we more grateful and make things easier for them. This makes me want to say to them that I am sure that they are receiving something from this country too. They are obviously making some money too, they are obviously getting some satisfaction as well and they are obviously happy to be here; it’s not my job to bend the rules for someone who brings in more money than most.

The problem is that people think that immigration is a service. We are not. We are an enforcement office.

That having been said, I do think that our staff should have more English language training so we can better explain and understand. But this is not my call.

Citylife: What would you do about it if you could?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: I don’t want to say too much here as it’s not my place to. But my staff and I also feel frustrated with this system. It is not our jobs to make the policies, only to enforce them. If there were less documents and papers required to make a work permit or visa, then it would make my job a lot easier as well. I don’t like having to send people back to prepare more documents, but if I don’t get the required papers, and if I send them down to Bangkok and they get rejected, this creates more work for me all over again. For instance, computers are great. But this is Thailand, and Thai government bodies like paper, we all know that! So everything has to be recorded. And since asking for a work permit requires dealing with so many departments, such as immigration, labour office, etc., each department’s regulations must be adhered to and you can imagine how complicated it all gets and how many pieces of paper are required.

Citylife: Has the system improved at all in fifteen years?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: Absolutely. The decentralisation has been a tremendous help. Before, everything had to be sent down to Bangkok. I mean everything! Now, we can do quite a lot here in Chiang Mai although we are still bound by very rigid rules. Soon, I hope that some of these rules will be loosened to allow us to make on-the-scene judgments so that we don’t have to consult with Bangkok about everything. They just need to trust us more. There has also just been a 200 million baht budget approved to centralise our computer systems. Right now every immigration office has its own programmes and computer systems and they can’t be correlated together. Hopefully once the central system is put up this will help everyone to co-ordinate things, such as black listed people, illegals, criminals, etc.

Citylife: What do you think of the new dramatic increase in fees?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: The last time that the rates increased was in 1980, that is twenty three years ago. I think it’s fair enough to increase the price after all this time. But personally I think it’s a bit much and I do feel sorry for many of the farang who live here because I know that many can’t really afford this. But once again, this is not my call.

Citylife: You must be expecting this question. What is up with all the corruption going on here?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: It’s hard to say. If I say that corruption doesn’t happen here then I would be lying. If one of my staff extorts a visitor for money and refuses to co-operate if they are not given this money then I will punish them according to the regulations. If you or your friends encounter corruption then I would encourage them to come directly to me and report it. If they don’t trust me, they I encourage them to go above me to my bosses and report it. I have personally never witnessed it. I have just heard about it. I know that sometimes people give money as a form of thanks for the help that they have received, and in this case I don’t mind if my staff receive this thank you payment. Another problem is that many foreigners don’t come here and do their work permits themselves, staff at their company come and often the staff claim that there has been money demanded, when in actual fact there hasn’t.

Citylife: Do you feel pride in your work? Do you think that you are making a difference?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: I feel so sorry for some of the really poor farang and sometimes when I see men being conned by Thai women I feel for them and I try to help them as much as I can. I am Thai and us Thai love to help. I want to help everyone, but I can’t. We will always try our best to give good advice to people and even if we can’t help them, to send them in the right direction.

Citylife: If there is something which you can say to foreigners now what would you say?

Pol. Lt. Col. Banphot: I want foreigners to have more access to real information, so that they aren’t confused and problems don’t arise. I would also like to ask them to please be sensitive to our culture and understand what our job is and what our limitations are. It would be nice if people dressed politely (they don’t have to be smart, just polite) when they come to visit us. Try not to lose their tempers, this is useless; and don’t complain about the policies, we know the problems; we just can’t do anything about it. Lastly I want to say that we love helping you and look forward to it.

Source:  Chiang Mai News

[Scalawag]

Thanks for sharing this interview. It appears he shares some of the same frustrations that we do. His comment about his agency being an enforcement rather than a service agency may explain the mind set of many of his staff. I can empathize with him though having responsibilty yet unable to influence "the system".

[Kan Win]

Dear George,

Very nice post.  ::

And thank you for the site:-

Chiang Mai News. Will look at it now and again Like Pattaya Mail etc........

Once again,

Very nice post.....

Kan Win

[Edward B]

Exactly what this site needs. More input from those who know the system.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Congratulations George...you pulled a real coup with that interview. A senior officer at the ' coal face ' Keep the good Colonel on side, he will probably oblige you again.