151–160 of 329 posts
> They are now in a database for ten years where they will be shared with all members of the EEA, which is most European countries. Given that she's an American, I really have no sympathies for this. I've had to give my fingerprints to the US border agents every time I went to the US.
As she explained in the article, she's not necessarily responsible for the actions of her government.
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Been to both countries a couple of times (I'm Dutch). Fingerprints got taken every time at the US, never happened to me at the UK border.
As an EU citizen they couldn't require you at the UK border even if they wanted too.
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That site seems fairly clear. Where was the site that the author posted a photo from? It seemed to be less informative. Are there two conflicting sites maintained by the government?
The same page, but note the "Last updated: 9 June 2016". The page has substantially changed since.
It's not that different, and it's still pretty clear that she needs to investigate whether she needs a visa.
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Yep. It's human nature - if the people she faced deal with people who are trying to scam the system 90% of the time, they will be conditioned to deal with such individuals. Then when the 1 out of 10 comes across who is genuinely NOT trying to pull a scam, it will be very hard for them to turn their attitude 180 degrees.
Sorry, although I buy the human nature argument there, from a government organisation point-of-view, that kind of behaviour is utterly unacceptable. If it's too difficult for people to do their jobs properly the way the system is set up, change the system. This isn't an impossible problem; we have many state bodies that have to deal with similar situations - police - and they simply should not be able to get away wit…
Ie I think the majority of the ordeal stems from this - not ill-handling on the part of staff who work there.
England has probably the toughest border to cross of any country I have been to.
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When dealing with a rigid system built on stupid rules it's better to avoid direct confrontation. She would have a 0.1% chance of being denied future visits vs the 50% chance of going through the experience she faced.
Are you saying that 50% of the US visitors to the UK who say anything other than "short vacation" get that experience? I frankly find that hard to believe.
He could have nodded along and said 'I hope you have a good opening joke' or he could go down the route it ultimately went.
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It's not about lying, it's about giving only the information requested. "I'm attending a conference" would have been ok too, or even "I'm travelling for business" - I've used both in the US without the border agent asking any more questions. When you volunteer a lot of information you come across as nervous, and sketchy
As a US citizen, I go to my company's Canadian office every so often. I have no issues saying it's for business -- the first time ever I was a noob and was asked to park and go inside for more questioning but once I clarified that my company is US HQ'd, that I was just there for meetings (not actual work?), and that I'm not a manager everything was swell. I later learned actual managers at my company never reveal the…
Interestingly enough, me and my colleagues were pulled aside for additional questioning because two of us didn't own cars (we both live in Seattle and bus everywhere). For some reason the Canadian border agent simply didn't believe that people in the US don't own cars! We were able to go through after the manager of the team we were going to meet had been called to verify our story.
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Try entering from Scotland.
I'm always entertained by how there's a big "Welcome to Scotland" sign on the A1 going north, and no corresponding "Welcome to England" sign in the other direction. The UK has an open land border with another EU country - Ireland - and so far the Brexit campaign have been very unclear about whether this would continue and what implications that might have for ""controlling immigration"" and ""protecting borders"".