But I guess it's allright if you're from Sweden and travel to Spain to enjoy the Mediterrean during the day and work in the evening (both countries are in the EU).
> I guess one cannot come from Asia/Europe to the USA on a
> tourist visa and legally telework from there. Other
> countries seem to have trouble with foreign teleworkers,
> too.
Who wants to be the first country to say that tourists can't check their work email while on holiday?
> Wasn't there an article about a police raid on a Thai coworking
> space, a while ago?
The law is really flexible in Thailand. What's unenforced today could be enforced tomorrow.
> they recently deported a few Russian travel guides in
> Pattaya
> The law is really flexible in Thailand
If you're in Bangkok, drop me a line and let's grab a coffee.
Though I did read rumors of Thai police cracking down on a coworking center in Phuket.
Indeed, and they may well ask you if your trip is personal or related to your work. And deny you entry if it is work related and you don't have the appropriate paperwork.
For example, when entering the US for a business trip under ESTA, you will be asked at customs for the purpose of your trip. If you say "I'm here to see some clients for business, and I plan to spend all my free time answering email and catching up on work", you will still gain entry, even though you plan to PERFORM WORK IN THE USA. This is also true of almost every visa-on-arrival country.
You are also making the mistake of thinking that governments are monolithic in caring about these things.
Border control only care about if you're planning to overstay your welcome, and care about employment only as a precursor to that. The relevant labour department cares about if you're going to seek employment while you're there, but generally they're not present at the border. The tax authorities don't really care about either of those, but want to know if you'll have income arising in their jurisdiction while they're there, and their definition of "arising" will stretch to many arcane pages. These can be competing goals, and tax departments/ministries will often make sure their data can't be accessed by other departments because they want to encourage illegal immigrants to pay tax...
If you were granted a B1(tourist) visa, you almost definitely can't say to the border guard that "I'm here to see some clients for business, and I plan to spend all my free time answering email and catching up on work", because this is what the B2(business) visa is for - it doesn't allow you to work - as in, become employed - in the States, but it allows you to do everything you've just listed. It's a specific visa used for the purposes of conducting "business" - and working remotely almost certainly classifies as "business". So to re-iterate: if you've been granted a Tourist visa, but your reason to visit is conducting business, then yeah, you will be denied entry to USA.
[1] - http://ashleyconnor.co.uk/blog/2014/09/07/the-digital-nomad-...
[2] - https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/work-permits-now-required...