Thailand welcomes foreigners into its midst, but it also reserves the right to deport someone back to their home country as long as there is enough legal grounds for the government to do so. The Kingdom’s authority to deport a foreigner is governed by the Deportation Act B.E. 2499 of 1957, which was published on July 7, 1964 in the Royal Thai Government Gazette.
Deportation is the act of seizing a foreigner and sending him or her back to their home country or another country depending on the circumstances. Grounds for deportation include the following:
The Ministry of the Interior holds the authority to give a deportation order against an errant foreigner. The Minister, of course, is also empowered to withdraw the deportation order against an individual or a group of foreigners if they are able to prove within the circumstances that the grounds against them for deportation hold no merit. This can do by filing the appropriate appeals to the Ministry of the Interior during the investigation period.
No, but the authorities will need to conduct an investigation to determine whether there are indeed grounds for deporting the foreigner. The investigation period is typically conducted within 7 days after a foreigner is arrested by the government. If the investigation takes longer than 7 days, a foreigner can either be temporarily freed unless a Court approves the extended detention.
It’s tempting to attempt to go back to Thailand after a specific period of time, but if you return before the deportation order expires, then the Thai government has grounds to imprison you for at most one year. You will also be deported again from Thailand in this case, usually in the same terms as the original deportation order.
In a nutshell, deportation is more or less temporary because its effective period is shorter than blacklisting. You can go back to Thailand after the deportation order expires or is withdrawn. However, blacklisting means that you are prohibited from going back to Thailand for a very long time. Blacklists have an expiry period but they are longer than any individual’s lifetime so, if you are blacklisted, you effectively cannot visit Thailand again.