New Immigration Requirement

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Gaybutton
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Re: New Immigration Requirement

Post by Gaybutton »

Bangkokian wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:42 pm if the rumours about Big Joke being removed are true.
Apparently it is true. This is the only publicity I was able to find at the time of this post.

Nothing clear about who actually ordered this or why.
______________________________________________

Immigration Chief Transferred to Inactive Post

By Pravit Rojanaphruk, Senior Staff Writer

April 6, 2019

BANGKOK — The immigration chief, who was seen as a rising star in the police force, was abruptly transferred to an inactive post according to an order released Saturday.

The document, issued by police commander Gen. Chakthip Chaijinda, said Lt. Gen. Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn was transferred on Friday to the Operation Center of the National Police Office. The order specified neither his new duties nor the reason for the transfer.

Surachate became one of the most visible faces of the Royal Thai Police after initiating a crackdown on foreigners illegally staying in Thailand in 2017. He was appointed as the chief of the Immigration Bureau in September 2018 and received much praise for handling the headline-making case of a Saudi woman who narrowly escaped deportation from Thailand on her way to seek asylum in Australia.

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2019 ... tive-post/
Dodger
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Re: New Immigration Requirement

Post by Dodger »

Someone's got to take the heat for all the major blunders made in the Immigration System since September, 2018, and not surprising that this decision came one week after the elections.

Examples: (All since September, 2018)

1) Failure to reach agreement with Foreign Embassies on Letters of Financial Income resulting in a stalemate with no viable solution.
2) Initiation of Additional TM30 filing requirements which increased Immigration burden and disoriented the expat community.
3) Poorly crafted revisions to existing visa renewal requirements resulting in chaos and further disorientation.
4) Poorly communicated visa renewal requirements resulting in massive complaints to foreign embassy's and most likely power struggles.
5) Enforcement of rules that condo's maintain a signed log of all visitors without gaining endorsement of the Land Office resulting in a Punishable Rule which is not supported by Thai Law.
6) Not identifying and addressing the root cause(s) of the problems Immigration is facing regarding "Overstay's" and then masking the achievements as being "Major Wins" which would be a hard sell to anyone.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why Big Joke was placed on special assignment on a lonely island, but it would be hard to imagine things not normalizing under the direction of a new Immigration Chief, especially if his marching orders are to eliminate the chaos. Who knows!
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Re: New Immigration Requirement

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Dodger wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 5:55 pm it would be hard to imagine things not normalizing under the direction of a new Immigration Chief, especially if his marching orders are to eliminate the chaos. Who knows!
Let's hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. All I ask is a clear set of rules to follow - rules that are not punitive, such as being forced to tie up a large amount of money for nearly half a year, and are required to be followed to the letter at all immigration offices.

Enough of this nonsense with different immigration offices and even individual officers just making up their own rules. For example, the immigration offices that refuse to accept the combo method despite the law saying it is perfectly legal.

If they do not want to have to do the math or don't have the capability, that's their problem. Those of us retiring in Thailand legitimately didn't create the current situation, yet we're the ones caught in the middle and suffering for things we did not create and over which we have no control. If the immigration officers are incapable of doing the math, then hire officers who can.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens and hope that they don't make things worse than they already are.
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