My Thai wife of 30 years and I had a daughter in the US who would like to now obtain Thai citizenship (Thai ID card, etc).  My wife thinks if Tiger Woods can obtain the same, our daughter should likewise be able to.  Can anyone shed light on this subject?

John

You should contact the Royal Thai Consulate serving your area.  Believe first step is obtaining a Thai Birth Certificate and information can be found on both LA Thai Consulate and Washington Thai Embassy in Consular/Legal sections.

my understanding was that tiger woods was offered thai citizenship by the pm at the time, i think because of his "contribution to thailand" .  check out this article from 1997:tier woods trip to thailand. i got the impression, it wasn't (pardon the pun) par for the course.

could i just ask why anyone would want to be thai? even if you are half thai, Why????

thats a pretty silly question gfunk. I guess that there are at least 60 million answers I could give you. But I doubt you'd understand even if we told you.

No sense of dual citizen unless she plans on being in thailand.

People jump off tall buildings but I would not do it because others do.

The obvious benefit would be that you can own land in Thailand and that if you're successful in the west, the LOS is a most excellent place to invest any excess funds you don't wish to be taxed (not to mention you get a whole lot more for your buck).     It's the norm for a LOT Thais (non luk krung) born in the west.

Recce,

I am in a similar situation to your daughter, except I am male and born in Australia. I live in Thailand now though. The process should be the same, and as she is female she doesn't have to worry about military service!.

firstly you need to register your daughters birth. You should be able to do this at the Embassy in DC. They will issue her with a Thai birth certificate. You will have to prove to the embassy that your daughter is entitled to Thai citizenship. Your wife should bring with any evidence she has that she is a Thai citizen (old passports, ID card, birth certifcate house registration). All children of Thai citizens, regardless of where they are born, are entitled to Thai citizenship.

You should then apply for a Thai passport in the US via the Thai embassy there. This should be a formailty once her Thai citizenship is established. However, first time I applied for my Thai passport overseas it took 3 months for the whole thing to arrive.

When your daughter enters Thailand for the first time, she should use her Thai passport.

She then should get herself a house registration (Tabien Baan). She could for instance, get put down as being registered at a relatives house. Apparently there is a very very small fine for those who havent been registered by the time they are 18. But I think this fine can be waived if you explain that your daughter has never lived in Thailand before. In any case, the fine is no big deal.

She then gets her ID card made at the municipality in which she is registered. She will need the house registration first though. Once she has the ID she should be sorted.

I may have missed something here, but I don't think so. If you can, get download Thai script onto your computer and get a Thai keyboard. Yet your wife to run a google search (in thai) on ID cards and house registrations. Alot Thai web sites will come up explaining how to get all these things.

Do as Lopburi advised. If the girl wants to pursue her heritage, let her.