Posts
It´s been a roller coaster of a day here as there are only five days left before my fate will be decided in the courts here in Thailand. I did manage to meet with a Thai attorney who agreed to see me at no charge as a favor to a friend of mine, so I did get some more details today.
The charges of working (playing a guitar and singing) without a permit are still up in the air. I may still be charged, but there is talk of dropping that part of the case due to a lack of evidence. The usual punishment for this is deportation, but you are required to pay your own plane ticket out of the country. That´s not really an option for me because I can´t even afford a bus ticket to Burma. Without having a plane ticket, I will be sent to the provincial prison here in Chiang Mai or possibly the immigration detention center down in Bangkok. There I will earn $2 a day until I can afford a ticket out. Mind you that the $2 a day is for food because in prison here you have to buy your own. I´ve done the math, and it´s not a pretty timeline.
The second and more serious charge is that of my expired visa. For those that don´t know what a visa is, it´s the piece of paper that gives you permission to stay in what ever country you are in and they are issued by the country´s government. I´ve had alot of people ask about this, and for my American friends I will try to make this easy. When a Mexican citizen comes to America legally, they apply for a visa from the US Government. When that visa expires they must leave the country or get a new one. The same applies here in Thailand, and my permit ran out a long time ago when I was living on the streets with nothing more than the clothes on my back last year. Basically I´ve been living the life of a ¨wetback¨ for the last year. The maximum penalty for this offence here in Thailand is 2 years in prison, a fine of 20,000 THB (about $700 in US dollars), and you must pay your way out of the country as with the penalty explained in the last paragraph. Back to the $2 a day in prison trying to earn a cheap plane ticket to Vietman, Burma or Laos just to get out from behind bars.
It´s still not pretty, but at least I´ve got a better picture of what I´m up against. I´ve managed to put some money together (about $300 USD or 9,000 THB local money) by calling in some overdue favors and what little savings I had, but I´m still a ways away from what it´s going to take to get me back to legal status. It still looks like a certain amount of prison time is unavoidable, and I have come to accept that. My main concern at the moment is trying to make sure that I don´t end up in there for the next decade or so.
I´ve always been one to do everything I can to avoid asking for help from others, but as the days tick by here I feel more and more desperate. Last year when I was nearly starving to death on the streets I put a ¨lunch money¨ link here on my blog and a few people chipped in and got me enough to eat for a little while till I got back on my feet. I had forgotten about it till an old friend asked me if it still worked the other day. I checked it, and it does so I changed the name to the Legal defense fund. It´s on the left side of the page here. If you can help, that´s great. If not, then I completely understand and would never ask anyone to go without on account of my own difficulties. I just wanted to put it out there just in case.
The emails and comments I have continued to receive have really been a big help already. I´m exhausted stressed and severely lacking in sleep, so it´s a real blessing to see an encouraging word in my inbox when I do finally get some time in front of a computer. All the best and thanks again for all the support so far.
Hanging in there.......
Matt
The charges of working (playing a guitar and singing) without a permit are still up in the air. I may still be charged, but there is talk of dropping that part of the case due to a lack of evidence. The usual punishment for this is deportation, but you are required to pay your own plane ticket out of the country. That´s not really an option for me because I can´t even afford a bus ticket to Burma. Without having a plane ticket, I will be sent to the provincial prison here in Chiang Mai or possibly the immigration detention center down in Bangkok. There I will earn $2 a day until I can afford a ticket out. Mind you that the $2 a day is for food because in prison here you have to buy your own. I´ve done the math, and it´s not a pretty timeline.
The second and more serious charge is that of my expired visa. For those that don´t know what a visa is, it´s the piece of paper that gives you permission to stay in what ever country you are in and they are issued by the country´s government. I´ve had alot of people ask about this, and for my American friends I will try to make this easy. When a Mexican citizen comes to America legally, they apply for a visa from the US Government. When that visa expires they must leave the country or get a new one. The same applies here in Thailand, and my permit ran out a long time ago when I was living on the streets with nothing more than the clothes on my back last year. Basically I´ve been living the life of a ¨wetback¨ for the last year. The maximum penalty for this offence here in Thailand is 2 years in prison, a fine of 20,000 THB (about $700 in US dollars), and you must pay your way out of the country as with the penalty explained in the last paragraph. Back to the $2 a day in prison trying to earn a cheap plane ticket to Vietman, Burma or Laos just to get out from behind bars.
It´s still not pretty, but at least I´ve got a better picture of what I´m up against. I´ve managed to put some money together (about $300 USD or 9,000 THB local money) by calling in some overdue favors and what little savings I had, but I´m still a ways away from what it´s going to take to get me back to legal status. It still looks like a certain amount of prison time is unavoidable, and I have come to accept that. My main concern at the moment is trying to make sure that I don´t end up in there for the next decade or so.
I´ve always been one to do everything I can to avoid asking for help from others, but as the days tick by here I feel more and more desperate. Last year when I was nearly starving to death on the streets I put a ¨lunch money¨ link here on my blog and a few people chipped in and got me enough to eat for a little while till I got back on my feet. I had forgotten about it till an old friend asked me if it still worked the other day. I checked it, and it does so I changed the name to the Legal defense fund. It´s on the left side of the page here. If you can help, that´s great. If not, then I completely understand and would never ask anyone to go without on account of my own difficulties. I just wanted to put it out there just in case.
The emails and comments I have continued to receive have really been a big help already. I´m exhausted stressed and severely lacking in sleep, so it´s a real blessing to see an encouraging word in my inbox when I do finally get some time in front of a computer. All the best and thanks again for all the support so far.
Hanging in there.......
Matt
No comments:
Post a Comment