An open letter to new Immigration chief General Sompong
It was good to read General Sompong’s admission that he had little knowledge of his new post, while his predecessors seemed to “know it all” yet had failed to heed the outcries of an estimated 350,000-500,000 expat residents of Thailand, (no one seems to know exactly how many there).
You, General Sompong, can become an overnight hero by doing what should have been done a decade ago.
First, I humbly suggest that immigration profiling be conducted correctly. Targeting resident expats is unproductive since they have a very low crime rate. Instead, why not use the available resources to target the tens of thousands of foreigners flowing daily into this country through its many ports – primarily airports. If you relieve officials from unnecessary processing of some one million useless 90-day expat reports annually, you could bolster the various Thai ports of entry with specially trained immigration profiling officers.
Greater efficiency at little or no extra cost could be achieved with three simple steps:
1. Cancel all 90-day reporting.
2. Hire proven immigration/profiling trainers – Israel has the world’s best but there are others.
3. We all know which countries the most troublesome visitors come from: using a more detailed visa-questionnaire in those countries would cut the number of drug pushers/prostitutes along Sukhumvit and other major city streets.
Consider even just the cost of buying, completing and filing the four forms filed every 90 days by 350,000-500,000 expats (2 million forms!). Many of these expats are elderly and some are in wheelchairs. They spend on average Bt1 million every year, many also buying autos and homes. Some, like me, support Thai children abandoned by their Thai fathers.
As someone fresh to the job, you are perfectly suited to make a positive change, at little or no cost to taxpayers. If you can stop expats from fleeing the country, you would benefit hundreds of thousands of Thais, including many Thai suppliers. A win-win-win outcome!
Don
