Thread: Overstay Penalties - They're Back...

Originally Posted by toddaniels

can you?

the 7 or 30 day extension of stays for 1900 baht

Blacklist for Visa Overstays to Launch in March

BANGKOK — Harsher punishments introduced last year for foreigners who overstay their visas may actually go into effect in March.

Approved by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Nov. 27., the new system of blacklisting foreign nationals who’ve overstayed their visas from re-entering the kingdom will go into effect once announced by royal decree in March, top immigration cop Lt. Gen. Nathathorn Prausoontorn said.

Under the rules first approved in August 2014, foreigners who remain in the country more than 90 days after their visa expires are to be banned for one year. Those who turn themselves in for remaining in the country more than a year after their visas expired will be banned for three years. Those who overstay more than three years or five years will be forbidden to return for five years and 10 years respectively.

If overstayers get caught by police, the punishments will be more severe.

Immigration, a matter of cyclical enforcement and periodic crackdowns, returned to urgency after the bombing of a popular tourist attraction in August killed 20 people. Most of the suspects identified in the ensuing investigation appeared to have entered the country illegally, possibly by paying cash bribes at border checkpoints.

The authority hopes that the new policy will help control illegal visitors to the country.

Over 9,000 foreign nationals reportedly were arrested for overstay in the country in October. Police have said they want to reduce illegal immigration by 80 percent.

Blacklist for Visa Overstays to Launch in March

thinkin' a overstayin'...

The notion that penalties for an overstay will somehow reduce a breach of their immigration control is ill-founded and has no basis in any reality but since it is Thailand we are talking about it comes as no surprise that they actually think it will have an effect.

No one commits a crime thinking they will be caught. And given that most illegal entrants and overstayers are Asian in origin and therefore incapable of cognitive thought it is even more unlikely that they will consider penalties as a deterrent.

The Thai might do better to actually enforce their immigration control properly and refuse many more on entry rather than their current practice of sitting stamping passports by rote with a cursory check of a database. Since that might require the consistent application of judgement, discretion and intelligence, the auspices are not good.

I wonder if the lorry loads of Cambodian over-stayers I've seen many times heading to the Surin boarder at Chong Jom have to pay big fines or is it something only us westerners have to pay ??