by Sanne
Bangkok’s immigration chief is no rookie. He’s been in the service for 35 years, but current immigration protocols have been in place even longer.
“Things were very different back then,” Maj. Gen. Patipat Suban na Ayudhaya said. “First, there weren’t so many foreign residents at the time. So the system we implemented didn’t have this many problems either.”
“When there weren’t many people, it was easy,” he said.
Patipat and his deputy Thatchapong Sarawanangkul spoke in an hour-long interview on Wednesday in response to growing confusion and complaints over the sudden enforcement of decades-old immigration rules. Regulations require expats to report to officials every time they leave the provinces of their registered address for over 24 hours – even for a vacation.
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Expats living in Thailand are subject to a dizzying array of regulations. The chief complaints are over TM30 forms, which must be submitted by foreign residents or their Thai landlords to local immigration bureaus every time they leave their residence for 24 hours (and when they return).
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via@khaosodenglish
