It reminds me of the paper forms I'd have to fill out when entering the US on a UK passport. The forms would ask questions like whether or not I was a nazi that participated in the holocaust.
I seem to recall this other time in Europe when travel papers were needed to prove you weren't part of a certain group. Some time back in the thirties i think it was under that government in Germany....
The fact that this article talks about passports is a hint that it is at least partly misreporting based on assumptions from someone who didn't know much about the situation.
This is within the EU, so obviously what would be asked is an EU id.
Darn, I guess the 190 or so nations that issue passports and check them at the border are all Nazi's... man I didn't realize that the TMITHC on Amazon was reality TV.
> the entire British system is super confusing and filled with technicalities and edge cases
On the front of my my first passport (issued in 1968) was the legend "BRITISH SUBJECT". Back then I could barely read, but even when older I didn't really notice it. A few years ago I ran across the passport in my parents' house and thanks to the web was able to look up what it meant: nothing. I apparently did "have" that status but it gave me no rights, privileges or even obligations. Just junk wording on the document.
This was an Australian passport. Though the passports no longer say that on the front, the Queen's name is still inside mine; I suspect that when I renew it in another six years her son's name will unfortunately appear inside.
Some of these people had US passports. US passports! If I had a US passport it would not cross my mind that I was not a US citizen and that I needed to do even more paperwork.
Yes. I wonder if there's old legislation somewhere that mandates the form a passport application will take, and they've gone as far as they can without changing the legislation itself?
You most probably hold a British passport which is a very valuable document. Let me tell you as a holder of a not as valuable passport, who needed a visa to get anywhere, how I have seen the world.
I now live in the US. Before coming to US I visited many European countries. At the border of all those European countries I was treated as a criminal. I waited very long hours while people in front of me holding same kind of passports as me and then myself were interrogated like in a police interrogation. I missed connections because of those interrogations. In one case when I did make the connection, I heard the pilot of the plane speaking to passengers about how the delay was caused because of waiting for people of my nationality. Even people associated with people of my nationality were considered suspicious. A friend of mine was married to a Canadian man who had the same name as a famous American actor. When they tried to go together to one European country, that man was also interrogated for 2 hours by the border police because they thought his passport was fake. I was once traveling via train from European country A to European country B. I happened to be in a cabin with a man from country B. The border police of country B (this was before Schengen) took him outside the train and interrogated him for 30 minutes because they thought his passport was fake. He had a pocketful of documents, bank cards, credit cards, phone numbers of his family members etc. and the border police still were suspicious. I was so used to the long lines and humiliation that I thought they were normal for any border crossing.
Then I traveled to US. Imagine my surprise when I got off the plane, walked a long corridor, passed by a drug detection dog, got into a huge room with many passport control booths, in 5 minutes found myself in one of them, the immigration officer asked me where I was going and what was the goal of my trip then stamped my passport and I-94 and I was done. Even if I didn't go anywhere from there, the trip was already a success. It made me feel like a human. In the time since then I have seen the checks in many European countries improve and in the meantime US has added the annoying process of fingerprinting, but in my view US border control still offers better human experience compared to European countries. I was once crossing the border from Canada to US and there was this old woman trying to get into US with an expired (like 30 years old) British passport. The border agents still found a way to let her in. Since Schengen she probably would be let into other European countries but I am sure before Schengen she wouldn't be able to go anywhere.
I know that there are people who have negative experiences while trying to get into US as there are negative experiences for people trying to go anywhere, but I think most of the noise associated with them is unjustified and if US border control need improvements other countries need them even more.
It would be a career limiting move - to put it mildly - to try to pass Israeli immigration with a fake $200 passport that states that you are Jewish when you're not.
I think when I get my passport soon I’m going to get this, and the same for my wife. Heck I wonder if I can get it for my two daughters too. The less information I have to give out the better. I do wonder if this would get my family hassled at the border to some countries.
Thanks for your comment, and my sympathies to you. As someone who is not even comfortable with my own country's passport requirements (fingerprints to be taken in Netherlands, processed in France by a US company), I can only imagine what it's like to live as an immigrant in modern-day Europe (I have no illusion that the mainland fares any better in this regard).
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