Comment by jbob2000
10 years ago
This was her mistake:
"..where a young man somberly asked me what brought me to the UK. “I’m giving a talk at a conference then traveling to see a bit of England. I have a letter of invitation,” I replied, confidently handing over the requested documents."
Just say "A short vacation", whether it is or not. Don't give the agent any more information than they need. Throughout her entire encounter with the agents, she was giving way more information than she needed to, which was prompting further questions.
Agreed, but be careful. * Do not lie to immigration officials, ever! * I can't stress this enough.
"Attending a conference" would have been true. The fact that she was a speaker as well is additional information that she could disclose if asked.
"A short vacation" could work, but beware. Depending on the country, this could get a flight back very quickly. Taking the US as an example: there's a "tourism" visa, and there's a "business", which includes attending conferences. For convenience, they have been issuing both at the same time if you ask for it on your application. However, if you only have the "tourism" visa, and it turns out that you are doing non-touristic activities at any time (such as going to a conference) and you don't have the required visa for that, you will be turned back.
As for the letter of invitation, if things are going smoothly, then it is not needed. If things start to look like they aren't going so well, then you pull out the letter of invitation.
Any information you volunteer opens new avenues for questioning. At some point you might be misinterpreted or be asked follow up questions that you don't recall. That never helps.
I don't wish this sort of experience to anyone. But the thing is, she's complaining as if the UK was an outlier. Her country does the same things, only worse.
Disclaimer: My views may be biased, but they are from experience.
Spent 4 hours to go through japanese immigration once - with my uncle, who is a citizen, in the next room(which I couldn't see) to check my answers. Were it not for him, I would have been sent back for sure.
Several US visas issued in the last few years, no rejections. No issues per se, other than navigating the amount of paperwork required (and double, triple, quadruple checking any information before submitting) and the required traveling. There's also the research required to make damn sure I was complying with all requirements.
Spent some time in a "yellow room" at the Atlanta port of entry. Consulate had messed up my fingerprints.
Went through immigration through Portugal a few times. No issues, even if they had to double check my info.
All good points.
If you say "here for a quick vacation", then they search your belongings and find an agenda for a conference or business papers, you can be sure you'll be denied entry.
Exactly. And that's not theoretical.
In Japan they did just that (after a few hours had passed already). They asked for some document (don't remember what), I pulled it from something similar to a file folder and handed to them. Was then asked to leave everything in the room and escorted back.
They found a list of phone numbers and addresses and asked what those were. They were for Prometric test centers. I was trying to get a Compaq certification at a time, Had already done two tests, was missing the third. I couldn't wait until after I came back from vacation due to a deadline, so had to take the third one there. Had to explain all this in Portuguese to a Spanish translator, to get that translated to Japanese.
I'm still amazed that they let me in. Took the test in Tokyo. Then HP bought Compaq. Poof the certification went.
I was even asked if I was religious. I had this postcard with a christian theme from my grandma to my aunt.
"Taking the US as an example: there's a "tourism" visa, and there's a "business", which includes attending conferences. "
No one will check you visa at the conference. So, while not lying about it, there is no reason to be open about it either since you will never get "caught".
It's not about lying, it's about giving only the information requested. "I'm attending a conference" would have been ok too, or even "I'm travelling for business" - I've used both in the US without the border agent asking any more questions.
When you volunteer a lot of information you come across as nervous, and sketchy
Sorry, but this is just victim blaming.
Innocent people should not have to avoid being truthful or complete in their answers just to avoid arousing "suspicion". Innocent people should not have to know ahead-of-time that giving honest and complete answers to an official will lead to this kind of treatment. This kind of treatment should not be acceptable under any circumstances for people who are actually innocent and/or have not done anything that would cause suspicion in a reasonable person. Giving complete answers is not reasonable grounds for suspicion.
What you're saying may be good advice in practical terms, but implying it's a sensible default is basically surrendering to an insane, broken system.
I'm not justifying what happened here and certainly the treatment she got was excessive. However, the reason that she had for entering the UK did require a visa that she had to obtain before traveling. The fact that she would have gotten admitted into the country if she would have given vague or wrong answers to the questions doesn't mean she is actually "innocent". Immigration officers are trained to pick up on people violating the law and she certainly was. This kind of treatment is not something you would get if you weren't.
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Blaming is one thing. Saying that certain actions lead to certain outcomes is another.
Moral responsibility and causality are two different things.
This wasn't "her mistake", in the sense that the crucial difference "giving a talk at a conference" and "attending a conference" have meaning within the bureaucracy that is totally inscrutable to outsiders. She was being judged at a trial with secret rules.
That difference (getting paid) is spelt out quite clearly on the UK Home Office's website and is certainly not a secret. Failure to check upon requirements does not excuse her even if personally thinking that a policy change is needed.
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As a US citizen, I go to my company's Canadian office every so often. I have no issues saying it's for business -- the first time ever I was a noob and was asked to park and go inside for more questioning but once I clarified that my company is US HQ'd, that I was just there for meetings (not actual work?), and that I'm not a manager everything was swell. I later learned actual managers at my company never reveal they're a manager, or at least not over anyone they're going to meet with.
The other thing about volunteering extra information is it can come back to bite you if you're not consistent next time, so I also try being as vague but still truthful as possible. If I was visiting anywhere else but Canada, though, I wouldn't have any problems skipping the whole drama with "I'm traveling for a vacation" and "nope, not meeting anyone I know" regardless of whether that is true or not.
Border crossing is basically a hazing ritual in a lot of places, and while I agree with GP's "this was her mistake" it really is dumb we all have to put up with the hazing. Kind of like not bribing a cop in [insert south american nation here] who is giving you trouble, or bribing him with way too much money. Some people just don't get that there are dumb, sucky customs where not following them (or trying to follow what they think is the most honest or rational process) is a mistake and complaining about the mistake after the fact won't solve anything.
I've done the same (US employee going to Canadian office).
Interestingly enough, me and my colleagues were pulled aside for additional questioning because two of us didn't own cars (we both live in Seattle and bus everywhere). For some reason the Canadian border agent simply didn't believe that people in the US don't own cars! We were able to go through after the manager of the team we were going to meet had been called to verify our story.
The only place I've (white American male) ever had an issue is entering Canada, too, for the reason you specify. My company had just purchased a Canadian company, I was a manager, and I was explicitly going there to get to know the new team and start making decisions about whom to keep/reassign/let go. The immigration officer was not excited about letting me in.
Isn't it illegal to work for money while claiming you're just doing tourism? Seems like it could get her denied from future visits.
When dealing with a rigid system built on stupid rules it's better to avoid direct confrontation.
She would have a 0.1% chance of being denied future visits vs the 50% chance of going through the experience she faced.
Are you saying that 50% of the US visitors to the UK who say anything other than "short vacation" get that experience? I frankly find that hard to believe.
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This is correct. That's why there is a distinction between vacation vs. business visits.
Whoever is reading this: don't take advice you read on the Internet regarding these types of things. Just this thread alone contains a ton of misinformation that can get you in big trouble.
So the victim is to blame for their honesty? How does this improve security?
The point is not to blame the victim for her actions, (that's in the past) but to advise on how to avoid such a situation yourself. (in the future)
Border crossings are one of those utterly weird situations where not knowing what's up will put you at odds with people who have zero respect for your convenience or comfort and are perfectly willing to remove you from both. And you won't learn what's up the first, second, third, or even fourth time you go through. You have to first appreciate the gravity of the situation and then second learn what you have to in order to gain successful passage.
Borders are where ordinary people run right smack into geopolitics. Most of us have learned the lesson from others to not bring plants or currency across borders, and not to say you're working without a work visa, but there's lots of other things that can fuck you over.
I learn something every time I read a story like this. In this case it's about the necessity of not giving the appearance of tax avoidance. This particular situation had nothing to do with security, they weren't worried about her trying to attack the UK.
And what would your "advise" be if she would get into trouble for lying to a custom officer? I guess something like "Just don't lie".
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It doesn't improve security. That is a different conversation. This about how to mitigate risk of hassle in interacting with a system that is broken (or, more depressing/honest working properly towards non-security aims).
Yes, this is a textbook case of idiotic bureaucrats encouraging good, honest people to lie in order to go about their day-to-day lives. This policy is clearly counterproductive. -- UK citizen, absolutely furious about this.
"Being compliant and truthful with the authorities in a routine border crossing was her mistake."
Whether or not it "just works", or how often people do it, that is just insane.
But the agents don't actually want to know why people are traveling. Knowing that forces them to actually do something that isn't routine, which is annoying and a time sink. It's better to withhold information unless explicitly requested, to simplify and streamline the flow for both you as passenger and they as agents.
> It's better to withhold information unless explicitly requested
But that's not the question. The question is whether or not it's better to lie about why you're travelling. Now, for some percentage of the time it probably is better in practice. But it's a trade with a fairly large downside. Border agents have lots of reasons to carry out checks so you'll need to be very sure that everything else is completely fine and be lucky you don't hit a random check.
And they do check. I've had to vouch for people at airports and they've checked social media, Google etc. For the lady in the article, it sounds like what she went through was solely for flouting work laws (and being rude but that would have just affected the degree of surliness). You get caught for directly lying and they'll be all over you for illegal immigration/terrorism. I would expect that to be more lengthy and more unpleasant than the unfortunate lady experienced.
My advice? If you want to earn money in a foreign country do it legally. At the very least check with the consulate/embassy and get their answer in writing if possible.
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When I visited UK for the first time I did say I was giving a talk at a conference (which was true). I didn't know you're not supposed to say that. Granted that was many years ago, but they let me through.
I think the important part is that she visited for a second time. They already had her in the database and flagged her for some reason.
Giving a talk at a conference is fine. Getting paid to give a talk at a conference is for many (most?) categories of conference employment and hence not fine.
"A short vacation" would have been a lie. "I'm attending a conference" would have been better - I agree with you, give them minimum, make them ask for more. Unless you're triggering red flags, they'll move on.