Not all of the time. They are missed quite regularly too.

Yes, and sometimes those in the role of immigration control clerks are involved in facilitating those frauds too.

And Spain uses APIS data in order to meet some such passengers about whom it may have concerns even when they fly via CDG into Spain.

I didn't state otherwise.

Immigration officers are certainly airport officials in this context.

For years I used to enter Switzerland at GVA and the immigration officer just looked at my (closed) passport as I held it out and waved me past. Now I enter at ZRH and they typically just stamp it without any questions or scrutiny.

From Geneva I frequently take a bus or car to France and back. Most vehicles are waved through although there's (very) intermittent checks of passports and the penalties (I understand) are substantial.

It works. And it's worked for decades. The US is just too paranoid about the 0.0000000001% chance of something going wrong.

Perhaps this is unrelated to FCO or the scrutiny by immigration officers at airports, but isn't it the lax attitude of Schengen that has caused problems within Europe? There can be no denying that illegal immigration is a major problem, although as many members have pointed out, such illegals usually travel from country to country via boats or surface travel.

But there have been many examples, from the past and from recent times: the UK maintaining strict border controls; Germany declaring that multiculturalism has 'failed' (this coming from the influx of immigrants due to EU agreements); Denmark setting up border checks again to keep out illegals and criminals from Eastern Europe; and countries like France that want to restart temporary border controls because it can't handle the large number of African illegals entering through Italy, I believe.

I do not enjoy getting questioned by US officials, and being a FTer I've read all about the horror stories of land-crossings across the US - Canada border. But isn't it necessary to have somewhat strict(er) border security? HK has a much laxer stance regarding Mainland immigrants or visitors in recent years, and living here, you see it and feel it.

Actually, November 1st, 2008. I remember this because I was looking forward to having a Swiss stamp in my passport, but I arrived just a few days after it all took effect, so no luck.

However, I seem to recall that, at least at the beginning, Switzerland was "Schengen" for immigration purposes, but not customs. On arrival, we were supposed to fill out customs declarations, if necessary, and drop them in a box.

...for more immigration pleasure.

Schengen doesn't deal with customs, so Switzerland has a common immigration and visa regime with the other Schengen countries, and also Switzerland will remain a non-EU country for the foreseeable future so it is and will remain outside the EU common customs area.

I'll take your above response to my post as a clarification that your words "all the time" equate with "frequently" or something of the sort.

"We find fraudulent documents all the time." Passport checking control clerks don't find them all the time, just rather frequently.


Not necessarily. As some of the fraud that occurs involves even border control agency employees who may not be staffed at an airport.

The problems within Europe would exist with or without the Schengen arrangement. There were problems long before full implementation of Schengen and the problems of today are all of the same nature as before implementation of Schengen.

Your second paragraph above really misses the boat for the most part, particularly about Germany and Denmark.

No.


Illegal immigration into the Schengen zone is not a "major problem". Many of the illegal immigrants are doing the jobs that the locals do not want to do. I know people in Amsterdam who run a hotel and who only employ illegal immigrants who are hard-working and are not causing any troubles. Strawberry growers in the South of the country are complaining that Romanians and Bulgarians do no longer get work permits and that they cannot find anybody else who wants to pick the strawberries.

Despite the UK border controls I don't think they have fewer illegal immigrants than other EU countries. The "failure" of multiculturalism (not a real failure, but used by mostly right-wing politicians to blame "foreigners" for all that's wrong in our societies) has nothing to do with Schengen border controls. Denmark's border controls are just to satisfy voters who must be convinced that the government is "doing something". France could easily handle the relatively few Africans who have come to Europe since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, but Mr Sarkozy wanted to show his narrow-minded voters that he was "doing something". In the mean time, most of the Africans have made their way into France and either found a life there, or have returned to Africa.

The US is a good example how not to arrange your immigration as a country. They hassle the 99.99999% of innocent travellers causing much inconvenience and at a great costs, while leaving the back door open for people with real bad intentions.
I am sure Hong Kong benefitted greatly from mainland Chinese visits to HK - the positives far outweigh the negatives.

APIS data? AFIK, airlines only have your name (exception is UK).

Yes, but multiculturalism was supported by Germany and all those people are there legally.

AFIK, they have problems with people entering Schengen by sea (from Libya and so), not by eastern Europeans. Tougher controls at borders would not help you if you have many people coming through sea (at points others than border crossing). So problem is crossing Schengen borders out of official border crossings, not weak control at those.

I believe that still applies, they are not member of EEA. Anyway, customs declaration forms are stupid. If you don't wanna declare, you won't put it on paper. I like Schengen system - they will randomly check people who seem to have something they are allowed to import. So do other countries, but they also force you to write useless customs declaration.

No, Spain is asking for passport details as well. I made a booking for someone few weeks back and I had to get that info before they could issue the tickets.