US Passport, born in Ireland, can use EU-citizen Passport Control?
Oct 14, 2018, 8:56 am
#17
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On a recent transit through Heathrow (to Edinburgh) my wife and I watched from the non-UK line as all those using a UK Passport tried repeatedly at the passport scanners, only to fail and have to then queue for the same Immigration Officers as the non-EU passengers were. It has been some years since we last went through Heathrow and it was an eye-opener. LHR is now on our personal 'no fly list'. It was quite obvious on both our arrival and later return experience that the airport simply does not have the systems and staff to cope with the volume of travellers passing through.
I had a look but can't find any list of average connection/transit times comparing airports around the world. Perhaps someone else knows of one. The MCT (minimum connection time) that airlines use don't really tell you much about one airport vs another either.
I had a look but can't find any list of average connection/transit times comparing airports around the world. Perhaps someone else knows of one. The MCT (minimum connection time) that airlines use don't really tell you much about one airport vs another either.
Oct 14, 2018, 9:16 am
#18
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Fairly certain he meant "does not cost anything" of course. And as for "proper English", double negatives and multiple negatives are a lot more common in speech, other languages, and dialects than you might think. To state that it is not "proper English" is incorrect. Do a bit of research and you will see.
What D! wrote was, "a US 'visa waiver' does not cost nothing." So according to your belief Silver Fox, what he meant was "Does not cost anything", as in it is free. Really? I don't think so, he meant to say that they are NOT free. What you have done is correct the double negative to the single negative which is the usual correction. However, in this case the writer didn't actually mean to state a negative, he meant to state a positive. It costs something. It is possible to sometimes interpret a double negative as stating a positive such as in 'I don't know nothing' can be corrected to mean, 'I do know something.' That was the case here.
As for double negatives being common in the speech of some people, I agree, they are. Nevertheless they are not considered acceptable in standard English. Here is a good description by the Oxford Dictionary. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/gr...uble-negatives
One of the reasons to avoid them is because they can be misinterpreted as you apparently did. What is a commonly accepted term in a local dialect is not something that should be written in a forum where your readers are not likely to be all from your own little region where such terms are understood. Communication is about being understood by the reader(listener), not by you alone.
Oct 18, 2018, 2:30 am
#20
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Never say never. At LHR, I've repeatedly cleared the non-EU lines using my US passport far faster than my travel party members using the EU passport users lines. I mostly do get the benefit of being able to use fast track if I want to do so, and I do have other choices at LHR at times, but even without that, there are definitely times when the EU lines are slower at LHR than the non-EU lines.
Oct 18, 2018, 2:38 am
#21
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This is a yes and no issue. Yes she could get in the EU national line and no, there is no guarantee the agent she got in that line wouldn't question why she was in that line with a US passport, regardless of place of birth. Being born somewhere does not mean you have legal status in that country. For example, what if for some reason she had renounced Irish Citizenship? If she had done that, she would have no legal status in Ireland. The Immigration Agent has no way of knowing her legal status just because her US passport shows Ireland as her place of birth.
Always bear in mind that Immigration Agents are people. They have good days and bad days, get out of bed on the wrong side, have an argument with their spouse,etc. and always have the POWER to take it out on YOU if they choose to do so. Err on the side of caution.
It does however make sense to use her EU passport if she has one. The only rule to remember when travelling with more than one passport is that you should always enter/leave a country on the same passport. So leave US on US passport(actually required by law of all US citizens); enter Ireland on her Irish Passport (there is no such thing as an EU passport); leave Ireland on her Irish Passport; enter US on her US passport.
There are times when having 2 passport does have advantages such as in this case. Another example is where entering on one passport may require a Visa (and paying for one) while entering on another passport may be done on a 'Visa Waiver' (which costs nothing).
Always bear in mind that Immigration Agents are people. They have good days and bad days, get out of bed on the wrong side, have an argument with their spouse,etc. and always have the POWER to take it out on YOU if they choose to do so. Err on the side of caution.
It does however make sense to use her EU passport if she has one. The only rule to remember when travelling with more than one passport is that you should always enter/leave a country on the same passport. So leave US on US passport(actually required by law of all US citizens); enter Ireland on her Irish Passport (there is no such thing as an EU passport); leave Ireland on her Irish Passport; enter US on her US passport.
There are times when having 2 passport does have advantages such as in this case. Another example is where entering on one passport may require a Visa (and paying for one) while entering on another passport may be done on a 'Visa Waiver' (which costs nothing).
For US dual-citizens subject to US passport denial/revocation or physical or electronic scarlet letters tied to US passports, there are still ways to legally enter and exit the US without a US passport.
Oct 18, 2018, 3:02 am
#22
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And can I point out the ‘overstaying’ issue does not work the way as described, primarily because there are no formal exit controls (emigration) in any of the countries we’re talking about.
Oct 18, 2018, 6:54 am
#23
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Never say never. At LHR, I've repeatedly cleared the non-EU lines using my US passport far faster than my travel party members using the EU passport users lines. I mostly do get the benefit of being able to use fast track if I want to do so, and I do have other choices at LHR at times, but even without that, there are definitely times when the EU lines are slower at LHR than the non-EU lines.
Oct 18, 2018, 7:43 am
#24
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While the US still claims it is illegal for US citizens to enter or exit the US without a US passport, the fact of the matter is that aspect of US law has been rendered legally toothless. The legal teeth behind the requirement to use a US passport to enter or exit the US have gone the way of the teeth of people with no teeth and no dentures and did so decades before there was an FT. Also, even when that law wasn't legally toothless, the law was chock full of "exceptions", as it still is, and thus recognized US citizens can still legally enter and exit the US even without a US passport.
For US dual-citizens subject to US passport denial/revocation or physical or electronic scarlet letters tied to US passports, there are still ways to legally enter and exit the US without a US passport.
For US dual-citizens subject to US passport denial/revocation or physical or electronic scarlet letters tied to US passports, there are still ways to legally enter and exit the US without a US passport.
Oct 18, 2018, 7:50 am
#25
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At least in the US, while there is no separate passport control check upon departure, the government is still collecting passenger manifests from the airlines to see who is leaving the country when, so if you enter on one passport and leave on another, it can certainly appear (to the government) that you overstayed.
Oct 18, 2018, 8:50 am
#26
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At least in the US, while there is no separate passport control check upon departure, the government is still collecting passenger manifests from the airlines to see who is leaving the country when, so if you enter on one passport and leave on another, it can certainly appear (to the government) that you overstayed.
Oct 18, 2018, 10:09 am
#27
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While the US still claims it is illegal for US citizens to enter or exit the US without a US passport, the fact of the matter is that aspect of US law has been rendered legally toothless. The legal teeth behind the requirement to use a US passport to enter or exit the US have gone the way of the teeth of people with no teeth and no dentures and did so decades before there was an FT. Also, even when that law wasn't legally toothless, the law was chock full of "exceptions", as it still is, and thus recognized US citizens can still legally enter and exit the US even without a US passport.
For US dual-citizens subject to US passport denial/revocation or physical or electronic scarlet letters tied to US passports, there are still ways to legally enter and exit the US without a US passport.
For US dual-citizens subject to US passport denial/revocation or physical or electronic scarlet letters tied to US passports, there are still ways to legally enter and exit the US without a US passport.
I played with a scenario a while back when I discovered that an expired Canadian passport still constituted 'legal' ID in Canada, as did an expired UK passport in the UK. So in theory, a dual citizen could leave one country and enter the other on their expired passports for both countries. The airline's concern that a passenger might be denied entry would not apply as in theory, a country cannot deny entry to a citizen who had valid ID.
I never tried it out, I'm sure it would have resulted in some hassle at least but it is an interesting scenario. Kind of a reverse of Mehran Nasseri (Spielberg's 'The Terminal').
Oct 18, 2018, 10:23 am
#28
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I usually can do a quick visual and check of the incoming flight history and pick whichever line works for me fastest. The fastest/shortest times to get landside at LHR for someone like me is not consistently the egates, that is for sure.
Oct 18, 2018, 10:27 am
#29
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The challenge is proving your US citizenship without a passport. You would most likely need a birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or similar document, which most people don't carry around with them. Driver's licenses and state IDs don't generally contain any citizenship information.