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I've lived and worked in Bangkok for many years and have the correct visa and work permit to stay here. When the floods hit last year and I had to evacuate my home, I decided to return to New Zealand to have my babies rather than having them in Bangkok as planned. Before returning to Thailand, I contacted the visa officers at the school I work at to get the required paper work to obtain visas for the babies and was told I could bring my babies to Thailand without a visa as they are under 7 years old. However, when we went to check-in for our Emirates flight, we were told that the babies did need visas - we were not allowed on the flight without a visa unless I had evidence of a flight out of Thailand so that they could get 30 days on arrival. This meant I needed to purchase one-way tickets back to New Zealand for the babies even though I had no intention of using them. On arrival in Bangkok, the immigration officers stamped their passports with a 30 day entry which allows them to stay until May 11th. The visa officers at my school are adamant that the babies did not need visas to enter the country and, at present, do not need visas to stay in the country. At this time, they are not going to assist me in obtaining visas for the babies or nor will they get me an extension of the 30 days visa. They say that it is okay for babies to overstay their visa and I won't have any trouble when I try to leave the country.
What I would like to know is:
1) Did Emirates make a mistake and should they have let us on the flight without evidence of tickets leaving Thailand?
2) Did the visa officers at my school make the mistake and should they have provided me with the correct paperwork to get visas for the twins?
3) Will I have trouble leaving the country if the babies overstay their 30 days? It's likely that we will not be leaving the country again until July 2013 so they will have overstayed their 30 day visa by 14 months.
4) Is it possible for the visa staff to obtain visas permitting my children to stay longer than the 30 days from within Thailand?
This situation has caused a great deal of stress for me and I am currently the only staff member (that I know of) at the school that does not have visas for their children born outside of Thailand. I was told that my situation is different than others - most staff arrive here with their children when they first come out so visas were obtained for the whole family at the same time. Apparently, it is different for me as I already had the correct visa and have been working in Thailand since before the babies were born. However, a colleague of mine returned to Australia to have her children and she required visas for her children to get into the country. This was 3 years ago and I was told the rules have changed since then.
If anyone can shed some light on my situation, I will be very grateful!
Thanks
