Thailand+UAE Have Flagged My Name At Immigration: Can't Be Removed
- Konrad Tillman
- Aug 15
- 5 min read
Intro
The other day, on my way to the Motherland (Russia), I had the opportunity to spend about 12 hours in Bangkok. Instead of sitting around the airport terminal like a numpty, I decided to go into Bangkok to get some rest. Well, once I reached immigration, things took quite a turn.
I Was Interrogated!!!
Feeling refreshed after a lovely 4-hour sleep on Japan Airlines 787-8 Business Class (review coming soon), I made my way over to the dedicated fast track line for business class passengers at immigration. It seemed to take quite a while due to these 2 people in front of me, but eventually it was my turn.
I handed in my passport, the kind agent took my fingerprints, but there was an error in the system with my passport. This isn’t the first time it had happened, and I knew exactly what the error was. She asked if she could take a couple of pictures, which I agreed to, and sent them off to her colleague.
5 minutes later, the commander in charge came over and instructed me to follow him. Uh oh, this is the first time this has happened to me…
So, What Is The Issue?
As I was taken back to the waiting area by the person in charge, there was a long line filled with multiple Chinese citizens attempting to enter Thailand. I began chatting up one of the security officers, as it was taking a long time to see someone, and he said that they have designated people for nationalities. As an example, there is one person in charge of America, one in charge of Europe, one in charge of China, and so on and so on…
Anyways, it took about 15 minutes before the guy in charge of America came over, sat me down, and gave me a form to fill out. I knew from the second at immigration that the problem was with the Date of Birth on my passport, and he confirmed it a few moments later.
My fourth passport, which I got when I was 11, came with the wrong date of birth on it. The passport office that issued it decided to change my birthday to 8 days earlier than it actually is. At the time, I visited many countries on that passport, but the two that still somehow registered it in their system are the UAE and Thailand.
Don’t know why: it makes zero sense whatsoever. Especially considering that no other countries flag it, I must assume that Thailand and the UAE use the same software here.
Enter Politics! 🥴
So, back to the story. As we began chatting, the man asked if my date of birth really was December 9th. I proceeded to pull out my second passport (big mistake), and this opened a whole new can of worms…
How do you have 2 passports?
What do you do for work?
Why did you come to Thailand?
Yada yada, I have nothing to hide and answered truthfully. He said he had never seen an American with 2 US passports, only Europeans. He then proceeded to ask me for another form of identification to verify my Date of Birth, but guess what, I don’t have a driver’s license. Thankfully, I conjured up my passport card and it all worked out fine…
Until it didn’t… “You are a student,” he said.
I responded, “Yes, I am in University.”
“Identification”, he replied. Scrummaging through my bag, I couldn’t locate my ID. Great… Fantastic… Tanatizingly Tantalizing. Buried in the very bottom corner of my backpack was this scratched-up, beaten-to-death, student ID. It looked like it had made it through World War II with a couple of life-saving operations.
“Great, I can go now?” I said.
“No, wait”, he replied. Eventually, after about 10 more minutes, he proceeded to walk me to the immigration counter. But, not so fast…
He began speaking about the war between Thailand and Cambodia. I had read up a little bit on it, so I entertained the topic, while keeping it light and pro-Thai stance…
Until he said this, “Your country will make this harder because you support Cambodia”. A little bit shocked, I just said, “I am English, my friend”, and he laughed it off. It was interesting to me that this was brought up, in Thailand of all places… Heck, even immigration in Russia was a breeze in comparison, no questions about anything, but it did take 6x longer…
A Couple Of Observations Here
Thailand is obviously known to be a major tourist vacation spot around the world, with people flocking from all corners to visit this beautiful nation. With that being said, here are a couple of key points I want to point out, as this did take me by surprise…
I will take accountability and say that I shouldn’t have had a passport under a different date of birth. On the other hand, they informed me that there is no way to remove this from the system in the future, and I will have to go through the same process every time I enter Thailand. Great… Even the UAE was able to get it sorted out quickly…
Secondly, this has happened many times to me, but for some reason, the person in charge was called over this time. I have to wonder as to why this was the case, as they can usually just sort it out at the desk, after a few minutes…
Thirdly, and what really did me in (lack of efficiency doesn’t bother me here due to immigration) was the fact that politics were brought up here. I get that the US has, frankly, pissed a lot of people off, and we also aren’t that welcoming, but I don’t think it was appropriate to say that as you are walking me to the front. I think it is more than appropriate to do that in a backroom, but the public takes it a little too far. All that to say, I have no views, so it’s the principle more that annoys me here…
Final Thoughts
Thailand and the UAE have flagged my name. Not because they think I am someone important or potentially dangerous, but becasue I traveled once on a passport with the wrong date of birth… While the UAE has since been able to sort it out, Thailand is unable to sort out the flag in the system. Let’s just say: I might think twice about booking longer layovers in Bangkok now, no matter how much I love the city.
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