ozstamps

I've visited about 120 countries, many numerous times, on an Aussie passport ... and the majority have stamped on exit.

I was in Cuba last month who like Israel use a loose white piece of paper system, but both are for obvious political reasons .. most others stamp them .. except the USA of course as I use a green I94.
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whiteknuckles

So let's say my VWP friend arrives in the US on January 1, turns in her I-94W 89 days later on March 30 and departs to London. On arrival, she boards another flight back to USA. Did the the I-94W get processed into the system overnight? If not, CBP wouldn't know she had just departed the US the previous day would they?

ralfp

The knowledge that she probably can't travel back in time would allow the CBP agent to conclude that she left the US prior to returning. Of course it would not surprise me if a CBP officer was incapable of this level of logical reasoning.

If she returned two or three days later the example might be a problem.

whiteknuckles

My point was.... How would the CBP agent know she had departed the previous day? If there is no exit passport stamp and the I-94W hasn't been processed yet, there is no way for the CBP agent to know by looking at a January 1 entry stamp if she had departed after 1 week or 89 days later. If the agent knew she departed on the 89th day and returned the following day this would raise a red flag that she is possibly trying to circumvent the 90 day limit.

BDA shorts

It's always disconcerting to not get an entry stamp for some reason... on my last entrance into BDA I wasn't stamped. I've also gotten "large" and "small" versions of their "passed immigration" stamp for residents--I'm thinking it could be a message they send to the customs inspector at the end of baggage claim.

There was a time when a lot of countries (think USSR) required "exit visas"--permission to leave the country. I'd imagine that's where the whole exit stamp and exit control thing started.

ajax

Many times entering Switzerland on a US passport I didn't get entry stamps. Several times when entering by train from Germany, my passport wouldn't be checked at all. This will probably change next Saturday (1 November 2008) when Switzerland enters the Schengen Zone.

I wonder. Most countries/immigration zones probably just want to have record of your having left the country.

Curiously, I know that Haiti allows US passportholders to enter the country without a visa, however, if they stay longer than 3 months, they need a visa to leave. I've never heard of anything similar to this for any other country in the world.

Christopher

Swiss passport control when travelling by land is pretty erratic. Everyone is routinely checked on arrival by train at Geneva, for example, but if you arrive down the way at Lausanne, there aren't even any facilities to check passports. At the wharf for cross-lake ferry between Lausanne and Evian (in France), there is a notice saying what times of the day passport/customs checks will be carried out.

And travelling out of Switzerland by train I have (in recent times) seen passport control officers only once: Italian officers on a train heading south. They looked at a couple of passports in the carriage I was in, and then one of them said loudly, "Is everyone here British?" A general confused murmur followed, and the officers said, "OK" and moved swiftly on. Whether everyone in the carriage was in fact British I have no idea, but I very much doubt it —.why would they have been?

But back to Switzerland: it is surrounded by Schengen countries, and so once it joins the Schengen area, there will presumably be no routine passport controls for passengers arriving or leaving by land. (Switzerland assumes responsibility for Liechtenstein immigration control, and as far as I know that situation will continue.)

GUWonder

Switzerland has entry and exit passport control and has had it for many, many years -- still they usually don't stamp US passports but they had the stamps for use on entry and exit if they so wished to use them. It will be interesting to see how Switzerland passport control changes habits as of this next weekend.

bosnyc

About a year ago I took the train to Geneva from France. I wasn't automatically stamped so I nicely asked if I could be stamped in. The agent took my passport, went to a side room (presumidly where the stamper was) and came back 1 minute or so later and handed me back my stamped passport---with a date of 2 days prior. I assume the Swiss are not big on stamping

Upon leaving at GVA, I again asked for a stamp at passport control. The agent told me as policy, passports are only stamped upon exit if the traveler has a visa that needs to be cancelled.

I did though, upon check-in get a "GVA" sticker on the back cover of my US Passport. Any idea what that means?

BDA shorts

That's most likely an airport security thing instead of an immigration thing. I still have a "Delta Security" sticker with a scribbled code on the back of my passport after checking doing the security questions on my ZRH-ATL flight.

ajax

I'm sure it'll go something like this:

Since Switzerland (and thus Liechtenstein, whose foreign affairs are handled by Switzerland) will be part of the Schengen Zone, there will be no border checks for any overland crossings, since Switzerland is surrounded completely by countries which are already Schengen members. There will, however, be increase border checks for flights originating outside of the Schengen Zone - I reckon that these will become much more strict.

Do you think it will be anything otherwise? If so, how?

Christopher

I think that's a pretty fair summation of what is likely to happen. My guess is that (certainly initially) the Swiss will stamp all non-EU/EEA/Swiss passports of visitors who arrive on flights that started outside the Schengen area (and correspondingly will stamp such passports when passengers are leaving the Schengen area). And presumably the passport controls on road and railways will cease.

Also, presumably, the visa-free concessions that Switzerland has given to long-term residents of certain countries (e.g. the UK and the USA) will also cease. Travellers with such status have been admitted as visitors to Switzerland visa-free whatever their nationality; I guess that now Schengen visa nationals will require a Schengen visa.

ajax

Considering Switzerland's a land-locked country, entirely surrounded by Schengen countries, I'll be the first to commend you on your sleuthing skills, Sherlock.

Anyone with a residence permit for the UK (even short-term, e.g., students) used to be able to enter Switzerland without a visa. After Switzerland joins the Schengen Zone, this will most certainly change as Switzerland's entry policies will change to match those of other Schengen countries, and the above provisions for UK and US residents will no longer hold. In other words, I agree.

What's a Schengen visa national?

GUWonder

I'm thinking of arrivals into the Schengen zone via Switzerland and departures from the Schengen zone via Switzerland. Most Schengen zone countries are reasonably diligent about stamping US passports at least much or most all of the time -- Switzerland (at least for now) however usually does not stamp US passports when flying into the country, regardless of where you came from.

I am just wondering if I will be getting a lot more Swiss entry (and exit) stamps at ZRH and GVA in the next 2 months than I have seen in the last 200 months of using a US passport.

GUWonder

That's not placed there by the Swiss authorities -- it's a sticker placed there by airline-contracted security personnel. Most airlines don't use security contractors that do such a thing but US airlines and a number of other ones do use them on some routes and then after you get questioned/screened they place a sticker on the back of the passport. ICTS is one of the contractors a lot of US airlines like to use and that place these stickers on the back cover of the passport.