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The head of two foundations in Chiang Mai has revealed to Thaivisa that a standoff between the new head of the Chiang Mai labor office and the city's immigration department is causing trouble for up to a thousand foreigners who are volunteering at charities in the province.

Our source - who has asked not to be named - said that visas were not being issued because volunteers were being denied work permits.

He called it a standoff between the new head of the labor department and Chiang Mai immigration.

Thaivisa understands the labor department in Chiang Mai has not been issuing work permits for foreign volunteers, with immigration then saying "sorry, we can't issue you visas as you don't have a work permit", said the source.

He said this was causing serious problems for long term non-immigrant "O" volunteers and charitable foundations and that as many as 1000 foreigners are affected.

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A high percentage are undereducated, unskilled, negative worth pricks, who left bigger messes at home to come save the world in Chiang Mai. Apparently, the numerous dodgy guesthouses no longer have mirrors.

And thank you so much for feeding all the SO I dogs, a great humanitarian effort. Keep up the good work, maybe CM will be entirely alcohol free soon. Jesus would have wanted it that way..Buddha, too.

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I can see their point, there have been loads of white foreign bogus volunteers in CM getting VISAs.

You pay an agent, they set you up with a charity, you get a 1 year VISA for turning up for 1 or 2 days.

I've known at least two guys in the past who did this (both under 50s).

Never heard about this till now (maybe cause I never looked for a back door in). There must be some legitimate volunteer work happening don't you think? Is this a case of a few bad apples.... Honestly looking for answers cause like I said I wasn't aware of this.

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IMO I would think that being an altruistic type person, giving back or paying it forward, it wouldn't matter where I practiced my selflessness. If it was me, I'd probably start in my own homeland where in my country (Canada)there's always a need for someone to step up and help others. With all these people that come here to lend a hand, are they leaving places that don't need anybody to volunteer to help? And also if it were me, I wouldn't travel across the world to help a nation that makes me jump through hoops to do it, it would be at home where it would be appreciated.

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exactly...I used to ask why so many found it necessary to pay huge money to adoption agencies in china, when there were 10,000 kids in foster care in Washington DC, alone. Even I. some very wealthy areas, you d not have to go far to find needy, or at least some very needy athletes and students.