New regulations require foreigners report to police each time they leave town, a security measure that could send investors for the exits.
Even as Thailand confronts stiff global economic headwinds and declining international tourist arrivals, immigration police have ignited a widening furor by enforcing a tough new monitoring regime on the kingdom’s large foreign business and expatriate community.
Besieged by long queues, software glitches and rising ire, the controversial reporting rules appear sharply at odds with the government’s ambitious promotion of “Thailand 4.0” as a burgeoning, foreign investment-friendly hub for high-tech and new generation industries at its flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) initiative.
Justified on grounds of shadowy threats to national security, the new monitoring system revives a decades-old law requiring long-stay foreigners or their Thai landlords to report to the Immigration Bureau within 24 hours of returning to their place of residence from a trip of one night or longer elsewhere.
The reporting law, centered on a now-notorious form known as ‘TM30’ (or Immigration 30), was first passed in 1979 but until early this year it only involved hotels automatically forwarding foreign guests’ passport details to immigration authorities.
Its extension to all residences now means that Thai landlords or property-owners accommodating several hundred thousand foreigners, ranging from businesspeople, technical experts, teachers, expatriates married to Thais and retirees, are now required to report their return both after travel abroad and after week-end visits to the beach or business trips to another city within the kingdom. ...
Widespread and apparently ongoing confusion in the months since the new enforcement of the law in March this year has morphed into frustration and ire in business circles and approaches to immigration authorities by several international chambers of commerce anxious for at least clarity and possibly a revision of the restrictive new regulations. ...
A mid-August circular to international clients from a Hong Kong-based political and economic risk consultancy reported a more forceful response: “Some foreign staff of local businesses are considering relocating, as the existing requirements for reporting after traveling abroad are already overbearing, time-consuming and expensive. Piling on requirements for reporting domestic movements appears to be a bridge too far. “
An irate Canadian businessman with a Thai wife, two Thai children and 15 years of residence behind him reflected the anger of many unable to pack their bags and leave: “It would actually be simpler if they issued all of us with ankle bracelets to enable 24 hour tracking.” He added: “If I wasn’t married here with kids I would have already moved to Cambodia or Myanmar.”
In attempts to mitigate the angst, Thai Immigration officials have pointed out that reporting can be done on-line or using a mobile-phone application. In the words of the bureau’s Police Colonel Thatchapong Sarawanangkul, who recently addressed a crowded forum of concerned foreigners organized by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT), “It’s easier than telling your wife you’re (back) home.” But a daily stream of letters to Thailand’s main English language daily Bangkok Post and a torrent of far less civil social media postings suggest that in practice accessing and then using the online reporting system is less “Honey, I’m home!” and more “What about divorce?” ... More at link
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/artic ... patriates/
