nacho

<deleted>

I have been educating my children that they will be perceived as foreigners since the very beginning, and they won't get preferential treatments like their snow white friends in Scandinavia despite the fact that they speak Danish and Swedish fluently.

Our children's passport were checked more than once, there was a time when a police officer demand to see the children's passports and I said isn't that children under 12 don't need to show ID and then right after that I handed him their passports because I don't want to argue with him and we have nothing to hide.

This extra checks happens whether Mr. is at the passenger seat or not. I got checked as soon as they spotted me - last time a police officer (young Nordic looking male) literally ran to my booth just to check our passports while he was using his phone at the same time.

I understand why some people are racists (not that I like to be treated like that), I totally understand that it's natural that people feel that way. I'm not "supposed" to be here and I don't look like a Nordic person.

There was a Swede who told me that her friend from Stockholm said that she goes to Skane every summer to dig sand out of a beach to eliminate Skane part by part.

I asked that Swedish mum if her friend was drunk or just joking (why would anyone say something like that) and she told me that she was very serious about it - that mum was actually offended by her comment because she was insulting the province she is living in.

I'm not sure if I read the news correctly: Stockholm ordered some banks to reject mortgage applications for anyone who works in DK.

GUWonder

Denmark will be putting in border checks for those crossing from Sweden into Denmark, even as the checks for those crossing from Sweden into Denmark had been declining. It is to begin in November and is using violent crime interdiction as its rationale:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile..../idUSKBN1WP0QZ

As a frequent flyer between these two countries and as as an otherwise frequent traveler between these two countries, it will be interesting to see what goes on differently (based on location, means of transport, national authority, frequency of checks, etc) at airports, at the various sides of the bridge crossing when using a car, at the various sides of the bridge crossing when using trains, and what happens at the various sides of the ferry crossings, and how documentation requirements and handling take place on the ground. I don’t welcome these additional border control measures because of what they may mean to the predictability of my travel times and experiences crossing the border.

I am generally with my US passports at all travel times when in the region, but it’s so much better and easier when I don’t have to dig the passports out or have to engage in a discussion with those border control authorities who usually don’t have much of anything to do than turn back non-Scandinavian adults and also many Scandinavian and non-Scandinavian teenagers engaged in cross-border entertainment/recreation without a passport/national ID or accompanying adult with such ID.

I don’t expect this to do much of anything useful when it comes to reducing the illegal gun and explosives trafficking and use that goes on in the region, but give it to the authorities to try to show that they are doing something even if it’s not really all that useful. The dog and pony show in the name of security gets an additional act.

nacho

Have you ever driven to Sweden from DK with a US passport? I know someone who is US citizen and living in Sweden. He wasn't able to get his residency during his first 18 months in Sweden - somehow he managed to get a Swedish ID without a residency permit, he used that alongside with his US passport to drive to work in DK everyday. The border control let him go without questions most of the time and once in a while he has to make up story to get himself back home.

Mr. got himself a Swedish passport just because of this border control - it's a lot easier to cross with Swedish driver licence/passport. He puts the Swedish passport in his work bag so he won't forget after coming back from holiday etc. I guess he will need to have both DK/SE passports in his bag when they introduce the border check.

GUWonder

Yes, I do go by car across the border via the bridge too, and generally I just show my US passports when coming across by car.

Mr. Nacho doesn’t need to carry both Scandinavian country passports to deal with Swedish and (soon) also Danish border control, as either country’s passport is acceptable ID for crossing.

About US citizens getting Swedish ID even when those US citizens are without a Swedish residency permit, there has been some of that (some of which around the DK-SE border area may be related to EU mobility rights being exercised or may be related to having a Danish permit already). I will have to ask some people in government here, but I thought that those IDs are not all Swedish permit substitutes and thus aren’t generally to be used as proof of legal presence/admissibility in Sweden. There are some special employment-related categories that do come in play for some non-EU/non-Schengen/non-European citizens working across this DK-SE border, but those are very limited IIRC.

But in my experience with using US passports for such by road crossings in private vehicles, they haven’t generally required more than seeing my passports (which happen to be loaded with lots of Schengen stamps too but don’t get checked as closely when I’m taking cars).

nacho

I know he doesn't have to but if he waives his Swedish driver licence/passport at the border control (when he is driving home from work - Scandinavian looking men with a Swedish car), he was waived through many times. However if he is holding a Danish passport, they always stop him and look at his passport. The same goes with the border between Denmark and Germany, we have never been stopped when we waived our Danish passports at the checkpoint.

GUWonder

I am not yet sure how accurate this is, but I was told that the Danish checks when coming from Sweden into Denmark are generally not going to involve ID/passport checks. The Danish checks when going from Sweden to Denmark by surface transport means are supposedly going to be sort of like customs checks and looking for weapons/explosives and narcotics as part of an effort to interdict gang/organized crime activity and other serious criminal activity. There is currently no additional Danish infrastructure that has been put in place to make for additional fixed station checks beyond what was in place or done for customs searches at times over prior years too. There is a chance that some of these checks will hit upon people traveling intra-Denmark, such as people traveling from CPH airport to/via the Tarnby train stop when taking the (non-Metro) trains from CPH into points elsewhere in Denmark, as some will be conducted on the trains themselves.

The Swedish border control checks for surface transport trips from Denmark to Sweden continue to involve ID/passport checks, but the national police don’t always or even generally staff to perform these checks for most trains and thus a vast majority of the time there remains no checking going on. But they are staffed for checks today and performing some today too.

Fredrik74

Or in other words the Danish checks will involve people who look like violent criminals, i.e. MENA immigrants and the occasional man on a Harley. Maybe they will deny the profiling but we aren't that stupid, right?

GUWonder

It would be a very low return way of doing things, even as I do expect that there will be that kind of dog and pony show at times too when they aren’t just running and relying upon the dogs. The weapons and narcotics trade in the region has quite the Central/Eastern European/SE European nexus too in Scandinavia, not that dogs care. But if the Danish authorities want to put on a show it’s not like anyone will stop it even if they mostly miss the big fish but hook some forgetful pot-smokers looking for their next fix or deal — including non-immigrant, young adults and older teenagers who engage in drug deals even on daycare playgrounds in upper-end neighborhoods.

I expect these Danish border “crime-fighting” checks — with uncommon exception — to be as useful overall as the Swedish ID checks where they frequently spend more time looking at say the Canadian passports of Canadian passport holders with EU country residence permits than when the same people just show a Canadian passport and claim to be visiting. Also, it’s not like there is much chance of the Danish authorities pulling over a private personal boat going from a small Swedish neighborhood harbor to a small Danish neighborhood harbor or that the top of the criminal gangs are all like fish out of water and unfamiliar with boats or avoiding the southern-most coastal crossings when it’s “inconvenient” for them.

nacho

There seems to be checks on the bridge - they don't have checks on all the booths all the time according to Mr. I don't drive across daily but when I do I was checked more than 90% of the time.

Swedes do that too.

I'm a EU passport holder and I'm not white/MENA and I was checked by Swedish passport control by the bridge every single time when the booth is manned when I was driving on my own in a Swedish car (once the booth was empty and someone ran to it just to check me), and my Nordic husband got through many times without having to stop.

GUWonder

The Swedish police are more frequently staffed to check ID/passports for vehicles driving on the road part of the bridge from CPH to Sweden than for those taking the train rails on the bridge from CPH to Sweden. I have no doubt that there is racist profiling going on at times with the car/truck/bus occupant checks, and also at times with the train and ferry passenger checks. The racist profiling is at least as likely (if not even more so) when dealing with the Swedish personnel who seem to have some non-European ethnic background as when dealing with the rest of their colleagues. But this isn’t that unusual a dynamic at Western European airports of entry where a growing proportion of the passport control staff are the children or rather recent descendent of one or more relatively recent immigrants of MENA, Asian, African or Latin American heritage. Maybe it’s an age thing, but the older passport control types usually have seen more and are less likely to make a pointless fuss than rather new entrants to the force and position. Harder to pick your passport control person when driving across the bridge than when taking the train or ferries or flying.

GUWonder

The Danish authorities are now saying they will be looking at ID/passports as part of the Danish border checks for people coming into Denmark from Sweden. They are also saying that the frequency of the Danish checks will vary based on conditions such as pending/current criminal/intelligence investigations, local circumstances and traffic conditions. In other words, expect mostly a dog and pony show, a show that diverts and consumes resources that could be used to increase police presence in Danish city centers and other Danish neighborhoods that have criminal gang and illegal drug/weapons activity but will instead be allocated to a very porous border.

This is the border control version of the TSA's ID/boarding pass check -- a dog and pony show to placate a public hooked to scary news and "news" stories peddled by entities and individuals for whom scare stories is what keeps or gets people hooked onto their site/side and thus demand something ... anything .. be done. Regardless of the overall impact from using resources in this way. But at least the Danish authorities didn't do much of anything to waste their time yesterday or today in checking commuters by rail at least. The same couldn't be said of the Swedish authorities yesterday and today, with the Swedish authorities having repeatedly turned away EU citizens today and yesterday -- printed flyer in hand -- at Malmo-Hyllie station. One guy removed today said "with police this attractive and friendly, I should do this more often".

The Danish checks are estimated to have involved the checking of around 2500 vehicles per day so far.

nacho

WTH - they might as well abandon Schengen.

GUWonder

Maybe I’m just encountering people to confirm what they already know me to think, but just about everyone I know in security sensitive positions in this region are pretty much in alignment that these Danish checks won’t do much of any good other than for a show of force and a show of farce.

When it comes to the chances of a traveler being checked and caught for serious criminal activity of the sort that is supposed to be the aim of these Danish checks, the chances of such criminal being caught are so very low and the checks subject to being evaded or avoided and to being so cursory that the most serious criminals and their “goods” will be missed amidst the legions of commuters and other cross-border travelers flagged down.

The Danish authorities are looking to use more CCTV monitoring and facial-recognition technology of the sort that has been used at CPH for a bit at least to try to grab known serious criminals. But that doesn’t work so well for the road traffic conditions for bridge crossers and does little to nothing against the use of unwitting or other low profile mules.

GUWonder

When using trains to cross from Sweden to Denmark in November and December, no Danish border control ID checks have been encountered by myself or anyone I personally know to cross that way from Sweden into Denmark. By road, it’s been a different story.

When using trains to cross from Denmark into Sweden in November and December, there are Swedish border control ID checks in place and being done in Sweden frequently but they are far from always in place. And it’s infrequent enough that it wouldn’t be difficult or take days to avoid the Swedish checks when coming by train from Denmark into Sweden. By road to cross from Denmark into Sweden in November and December, there are Swedish border control ID checks in place always, although how they do the check often varies based on the whim of the border control police encountered.

GUWonder

Since the coronavirus lockdown happened in Denmark, Sweden’s border control checks for bridge traffic dropped off even further than before for rail passengers.

Even with Denmark opening up again in May, Swedish passport control checks of rail passengers remain very infrequent. But with Denmark’s gradual opening in May, Swedish Customs’ checks of rail passengers have increased and are now more commonly done by plain-clothes Swedish customs officers (and a non-traditional breed of sniffer dog) than by uniformed officers.