Basic 60 day tourist Visa

[magician]

 

I paid a hefty 20,000 THB overstay a few months ago at Don Muang. They accepted ONLY Thai Baht. I had to go to a couple of the banks in the airport to get an advance on a credit card, as I did not have enough cash on me, or enough in my debit account, to cover it.

 

It took them about an hour to process the paperwork. I went to the airport a good three hours early, and it was a good thing that I did. I would have missed my flight.

 

This overstay was caused by the cancellation of my passport, and it took me MONTHS to get it reissued. It was an old child support enforcement flag that came out of the bureaucratic woodwork with no warning. It was a nightmare.

 

I went to the Embassy one day to get additional pages inserted. This normally takes an hour or so, and is no problem. Well, this time, I noticed that it was taking a long, long time....and finally, I was the only person left in the waiting room. I was called up to the window, and the very nice consular official told me that she was cancelling my passport. I was floored. She told me why, she gave me a couple of pieces of paper, and then she told me that she was authorized to process an emergency passport for me to return to my home country, and that this passport was good for one-way travel only.

 

That was it. She told me that I had to get the flag lifted before she could reissue a full passport.

 

Well, I had no place to go, literally, back in my home country. I live in Bangkok. So I decided to try to get the flag lifted by calling the child support enforcement offices from Thailand.

 

I went round and round with child support enforcement in two states, and literally, they told me "we do not know how much that you owe." I told them "pick a number." They said that they could not. It took them two weeks to tell me that they could not figure out how much that I owed.

 

Finally, after FOUR MONTHS of going round and round with them, I broke down and hired an attorney. He handled it all within three weeks. During those four months....I felt like a fugitive. It cost me some coin to fix this problem, but....all that I can say is, I would never want to go through the predicament again. It was positively Kafkaesque.

 

I did get an overstay stamp in my passport. I asked for an emergency passport from the Embassy, which they issued within 48 hours. It was good for one year. I applied for a full replacement passport, and was told "two weeks." So the overstay stamp was in my emergency passport.

 

When I came back to Bangkok, I was given a ration of shit from the customs official stamping passports at Don Muang. I had to listen to this git lecture me. He loved it. I just took it. I live here.

 

I then went back to the Embassy and signed for my replacement passport. The stamp is in my old emergency passport. My new passport is clean.

 

Since then, no problems transiting customs many, many times. Just routine.

 

So, yes. You need cash baht to pay an overstay fine at Don Muang. No Visa, no MasterCard. Cash.

 

You may be harassed if you have that overstay stamp in your passport. I am sure that it shows up in the database of Thai Customs, but it has never been mentioned to me since.

 

I have to also advise, do not overstay. Period.

 

 

[dean]

Being irish-American on both sides of my family, I've thought about getting an Irish passport but would probably be turned down because I'm fourth generation on one side and fifth generation on the other. The Irish government requires that at least one of your grandparents be from Ireland, so you can't go back any further than three generations. I'd like an Irish passport just to avoid the situation that you describe. I have never been married and have no kids but I really don't want to have my only passport canceled and be forced into the same situation in LOS. Is there a list of reasons that the U.S. government issues that are reasons to have your passport cancelled, other than the obvious like having a warrant issued for your arrest?

[elef]

"A federal or state law enforcement agency may request the denial of a passport on several regulatory grounds under 22 CFR 51.70 and 51.72. The principal law enforcement reasons for passport denial are a federal warrant of arrest, a federal or state criminal court order, a condition of parole or probation forbidding departure from the United States (or the jurisdiction of the court), or a request for extradition. The HHS child support database and the Marshals Service WIN database are checked automatically for entitlement to a passport. Denial or revocation of a passport does not prevent the use of outstanding valid passports."

 

"The physical revocation of a passport is often difficult, and an apparently valid passport can be used for travel until officially taken by an arresting officer or by a court."

 

Source

 

[dean]

My concern doesn't fall in any of those catagories. I still wouldn't mind having a back up passport from Ireland for use in an emergency and to use and have stamped in countries from which a stamp on a U.S. passport could cause problems. Thanks, Elef. I guess next time I can get off my butt and look it up myself.

[cavanami]

If memory serves me...my Dutch friend has two Dutch passports; one he uses to go to Isreal and the other to go to Arab countries.

 

At one time, both the Arabs and the Jews got "upset" when they saw the other country's immigration stamp in the passport.

 

Not sure what the USA would do to help one out?

 

My previouspassport was full of stamps from Arab countries, but I never had to go to Isreal.

[ThaiHome]

If memory serves me...my Dutch friend has two Dutch passports; one he uses to go to Isreal and the other to go to Arab countries.

 

At one time, both the Arabs and the Jews got "upset" when they saw the other country's immigration stamp in the passport.

 

Not sure what the USA would do to help one out?

 

My previouspassport was full of stamps from Arab countries, but I never had to go to Isreal.

 

Isreal now gives you the option of not stamping your passport, you only get a card which can be removed. To my knowledge, Isreal does not object to other ME country stamps.

TH