Immigration announcement to PR holders with British Colony passports

[george]

Thai Immigration announcement to PR holders with British Colony passports

BANGKOK: -- The Immigration Bureau is announcing the following changes for PR holders with British Colony passports:

Source: Immigration Bureau 2013-09-26

-- 2013-09-26

[kotsak]

They have messed up and now they're trying to clean it up.. Not surpised, those BNO passports are VERY similar to the British ones

Edited September 26, 2013 by kotsak

[Mario2008]

It is an announcement for permanent residence holders only.

In some cases a person has been listed with "British Colony" or "UK" as their nationality. Immigration wants them to change their nationality description on Permanent Residency papers to "British".

[Suffinator]

So they've just figured out the difference?

[jcb2001]

I believe this mainly refers to Hong Kongers.

[gamini]

strange request. Unless you want to travel outside of Thailand you do not need a passport. So a lot of PR's don't have passports. So I wonder why they ask you to bring your passport

[DekDaeng]

Wot about Striyans?

[Arkady]

This is badly worded but it must refer to the change of nationality from "angrit" to "britis", following a Ministry of Foreign

Affairs directive in about 2007. I was obliged to go through this painful rigmarole to apply for Thai citizenship. The problem was that the district offices software was amended to only give out the nationality of "britis" some years ago, while Immigration kept on inscribing "angrit" in PR documents. That meant you were "angrit" on some documents and "britis" on others which was not acceptable to the Interior Ministry in applications for citizenship. Getting the police station to change the nationality in the alien book was the most difficult part of the procedure. Immigration was also very difficult and insisted on doing a 1.5 hour interview to re-verify all personal details. The Labour Ministry was the easiest, making the change on the spot. The whole ridiculous process took me three months to complete and involved several visits to Immigration at Chaengwattana and my local police station and several phone calls to both to chase up. I hope they have the process more streamlined now. Those who have tabien baans issued before the software was amended will need to get them changed too. Good luck.

[jacko45k]

Not preparing for Scottish Independence.......

[Sceptict11]

This is badly worded but it must refer to the change of nationality from "angrit" to "britis", following a Ministry of Foreign

Affairs directive in about 2007. I was obliged to go through this painful rigmarole to apply for Thai citizenship. The problem was that the district offices software was amended to only give out the nationality of "britis" some years ago, while Immigration kept on inscribing "angrit" in PR documents. That meant you were "angrit" on some documents and "britis" on others which was not acceptable to the Interior Ministry in applications for citizenship. Getting the police station to change the nationality in the alien book was the most difficult part of the procedure. Immigration was also very difficult and insisted on doing a 1.5 hour interview to re-verify all personal details. The Labour Ministry was the easiest, making the change on the spot. The whole ridiculous process took me three months to complete and involved several visits to Immigration at Chaengwattana and my local police station and several phone calls to both to chase up. I hope they have the process more streamlined now. Those who have tabien baans issued before the software was amended will need to get them changed too. Good luck.

Am I missing something or is it a typo ?

What exactly is a "britis" ?

[ubonjoe]

A transliteration of written Thai to English for the word British translated to Thai.

[Sceptict11]

I am not very good at this but doesn't British translate to อังกฤษ?

[kotsak]

Sceptict11, on 27 Sept 2013 - 13:44, said:

I am not very good at this but doesn't British translate to อังกฤษ?

Try telling a Scottish that he is อังกฤษ..

[smotherb]

since there are no longer any British colonies, only 14 small territories--now called British Overseas Territories--are you going to have to go through another change

[Sceptict11]

Sceptict11, on 27 Sept 2013 - 13:44, said:

I am not very good at this but doesn't British translate to อังกฤษ?

Try telling a Scottish that he is อังกฤษ.. width=20 alt=giggle.gif>

I believe as individuals the term Scot is preferred !

[jayboy]

This is badly worded but it must refer to the change of nationality from "angrit" to "britis", following a Ministry of Foreign

Affairs directive in about 2007. I was obliged to go through this painful rigmarole to apply for Thai citizenship. The problem was that the district offices software was amended to only give out the nationality of "britis" some years ago, while Immigration kept on inscribing "angrit" in PR documents. That meant you were "angrit" on some documents and "britis" on others which was not acceptable to the Interior Ministry in applications for citizenship. Getting the police station to change the nationality in the alien book was the most difficult part of the procedure. Immigration was also very difficult and insisted on doing a 1.5 hour interview to re-verify all personal details. The Labour Ministry was the easiest, making the change on the spot. The whole ridiculous process took me three months to complete and involved several visits to Immigration at Chaengwattana and my local police station and several phone calls to both to chase up. I hope they have the process more streamlined now. Those who have tabien baans issued before the software was amended will need to get them changed too. Good luck.

If a PR holder isn't planning to apply for citizenship I wonder what the penalty is, if any, for not complying or if there is any time limit or if there are any practical reasons why one should make the requested changes.I was amused that Immigration was the most difficult in your experience given that the mistake,if that is how it can be described, is on their part.In a sane world the officials there should have been ruefully apologetic for subjecting you to the inconvenience.It would require a Kafka to explain.

[samran]

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall at the committee meetings that would have been called to thrash this out. I guarantee there would have been a few.

[iancnx]

I am guessing it might be loosely related to the general coding in the Thai government IT systems..... Been through this with my yellow book, and my son's birth certificate. There are different nationality codes for:

English

UK

Welsh

GB

Scottish

Great Britain

British

UK

United Kingdom

England

British Isles

And none of these codes are sequential or alphabetical. Found in a big fat ADP print out held by a not so well educated government official who thinks they are all totally different.

It is likely there are codes for commonwealth and British Oversea Territories also.

[Kan Win]

I am not very good at this but doesn't British translate to อังกฤษ?

If that is in fact correct then that is what is written in Thai in my PR.

Could someone confirm this please.

Win

[Mario2008]

That translates to "angkrit" or English, not British which has its own translation.

[Kan Win]

Mario2008,

Thank you very much.

Win

[ubonjoe]

This is from a post in the PR topic that a British person posted showing what is in his red book. He states it is correct.

Edited September 27, 2013 by ubonjoe

[howzat]

So simply if my PR documents say British and English and I have a normal United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Passport and not a British Colony Passport as I was born in Liverpool then I need to do nothing.

Is that correct?

[stbkk]

I don't think that's correct.

From what I understand they ALL need to say British, not English.

For information, my PR was one of the big block approved last year (2006 applicant), and my PR book, Police book and Tabian baan all say British already. So if I am a typical example, it might not be a problem for many of the new PR's.

However, for some reason my work permit says English, so I need to get that changed. Maybe because I have had that for years, before all of this raised its head.