Airports and Visa Problems

Factual Questions
1

Not my own, luckily.

I work for a major tourist attraction in California, and today I had to reschedule a client who had “visa issues.” They had flown from Italy to Heathrow Airport, and were intending to fly from there to New York and then on to L.A. I was told they were “turned away” at Heathrow–whether they had improper documentation to enter the UK, or to continue to the US, or both, I don’t know.

I haven’t flown internationally in years, but I do recall having my passport checked before boarding–I guess to prevent this sort of thing from happening. In a case like this, where at least three flights were involved, at what point in the process would you be stopped from boarding a plane?

If you get off a plane and, for whatever reason, cannot legally be in the country where you’ve landed or cannot take your connecting flight, are you immediately sent home? Is there a holding area for people with visa/passport problems? If you are sent home, who pays for that flight?

There is a famous case of a man who has lived in Charles de Gaulle airport for a number of years due to immigration problems, and can’t leave the airport because he doesn’t have the proper papers to be in France. Does that mean airports are considered neutral territory?

2

I travel internationally a few times a year. Sometimes to places where Visas are required.

Usually, when you are simply changing planes in an airport you are not required to have a visa for that country, just a valid passport. visas are checked at the final destination.

Some countries have electronic Visa applications (like Australia) you can even get your visa right there at the airport when you arrive.

Other places, Like India, are much more difficult and it can take weeks to get a Visa apporoved. If you get to the country and have no visa, you are sent back to where you came from on the next available flight.

3

There was a man who lived in Paris airport for many years as he could not go anywhere.

4

You can be turned back at any point in the process, if the airline officials, upon examining your documentation, feel you won’t be allowed to enter the country you’re traveling to. In the case of the U.S., airlines can be fined for transporting someone with improper documentation. My boss at an old job once made the mistake of not checking before a business trip to Ukraine; the last time he’d gone, you could buy a visa at the airport on arrival, but the requirement had since changed, so that you needed a visa in advance. He (an American) was turned back upon trying to board his connectig flight in Frankfurt; since the Germans had no problem with him staying in Germany without a visa, they didn’t stick him on the next return flight to the U.S., but he couldn’t go to Ukraine either, so he just came home anyway.

The catch is that they can’t send you back if you don’t have the documentation to enter the place they’re trying to send you back to. That’s why the U.S. is still stuck with all the Mariel Boatlift Cuabns who would ordinarily have been deported long ago for crimes committed in the U.S.; Castro won’t take them back.

And that’s how the guy in Paris got stuck there; I can’t remember all the details right now, but he was essentially a stateless refugee, and so he didn’t have the documentation to enter ANY country, so the French couldn’t send him anywhere. IIRC he had been in possession of a passport when he boarded his flight, but had destroyed it enroute, and as an opponnent of his native country’s regime, he couldn’t get them to issue him another one. Hopefully some better Googler than I will come along and post a link; I seem to remember a NYT story from a couple of years ago.

5

Has a guy been stuck in the Paris airport since 1988 for lack of the right papers?

The Master speaks.

6

If your client was Italian, I’d have thought he would be allowed into the UK anyway as an EU country, so I suspect the issue was with respect to going on to the US.

7

Well, under normal circumstances he should be allowed into the US also - Italy is a “visa waiver” country, meaning its citizens do not need visas for stays of less than 90 days. Unless he had a criminal record or there was some reason to believe he wasn’t coming purely for a holiday.

8

Remember, it’s the airlines, not immigration, who make the ultimate decision. Reason: they have to bear the cost of repatriation if immigration refuse entry to the destination country.

Also the rules are slightly more lax if the onward flight is part of the same ticket. If the Italian chap had booked a ticket to London, and then booked a separate ticket to the US, he would be entering the UK as a visitor, not as an onward passenger. If the ticket was booked all-in-one, then he would be in transit.

9

Sorry, the start of the second paragraph should read “Also, application of the rules…”.

10

Ah, but we’re not told that he was Italian - just that he started his journey in Italy.

He could have been rejected at Heathrow for a number of reasons.

One possibility is that he did not have a visa which he did, in fact, need to enter the US, and the airline rejected him. Strictly speaking he ought to have been turned away at Rome, but the airline carrying him from Rome to London may have been less vigilant about checking his visa status for his ultimate destination, the US, than the airline which would actually carry him to the US. This might be especially so if the Rome - London carrier was not a US airline, while the London - NY carrier was. (I think, but I am not sure, that carriers to the US are fined or otherwise penalised if they bring somebody to the US who is turned away at immigration for not having the required visa).

Another possibility is that he attempted to land (i.e. pass through UK immigration) at Heathrow and did not have a visa which he required for the UK. However a passenger in transit to the US would not normally need to land (in this sense) at Heathrow.

The general practice is that the carrier at the point of origin is supposed to check that you meet the immigration requirements for your final destination. This is especially so if you are being “checked through” to your final destination.

If you are turned away at an intermediate transit point, it is either because the original carrier failed to check properly that you have the visa needed for your final destination, or because you were not checked all the way through, and presented yourself at the intermediate destination to check in for the final destination.

Note that in all these cases it is the airlines who are doing the checking and the turning away. Generally you will not meet a US immigration agent until you actually land in the US. (Although there are exceptions - passengers travelling to the US from or through Ireland, for example, clear US immigration before they leave Ireland).

If you are turned away at an intermediate transit point, you can if you wish seek to be admitted to the country you are now in. If you choose not to do that, or if you are refused, it is the responsibility of the airline who brought you there to arrange for you to be brought back to where you started (or to some third country that will accept you). If this is going to take some time you may be temprarily admitted to the country you are now in. You may be detained, if it is thought that there is a risk that you will seek to stay illegally. If your return journey can be arranged within a few hours, you will probably stay airside like any other transit passenger.

11

Transit passengers in Heathrow that would require a visa to enter the UK (which they don’t want to) still require a transit visa to the UK. Been there, done that (for my wife). It is basically just a rip-off to get some more money out of you.

12

The country where you are flying to can reject you and put you on the plane back. Cuba is a special case because they won’t take their own citizens back. I know of people ocming to China and getting put on the same flight back to the UK because of visa problems and the airlines get something like a USD10,000 fine.

13

Obligatory IANAL, but I’ve been refused boarding in London on two occasions, so I know a little bit about these kind of problems.

It probably revolves around the right sort of visa. We don’t know the nationalality of the person in the OP, nor do we know the type of ticket they were travelling on.

If their nationality required a visa and they didn’t have one, then it’s a no go. It should have been picked up in Italy, but since the guy was flying to London, then lack of visa checking is possible, as intra-EU travel never requires a visa.

It’s very hard to imagine that there was a problem with immigration at Heathrow. As far as I know, transit passengers don’t pass through passport control. Anyway, assuming you are in Italy legally, there is no reason why you have trouble entering Britain.

The other possiblity is that the OPs client was Italian. You can still be denied boarding, even though you are travelling under the visa waiver, for a number of reasons. The two biggies:

1 Booking a one way ticket - this is what I was pulled up for. One way ticket + no visa = no go

2 Buying a return ticket with either no return date booked or a return date later than 90 days from arrival. You will be turned away for this.

14

One more thing; even people who are of nationalities that arenormally visa-exempt will frequently need visas if they have even minor criminal convictions, or have violated the terms of a prefvious visa. A friend of my mom’s was just denied entry to the Netherlands for a 30-year-old French hash possession conviction. Not that they Dutch could care less about the hash, but he’s got a conviction on his record anyway, and until he gets it expunged, he can’t enter the E.U. without a visa.

In my years in the immigraiton field, I’ve discovered that really, you never know who has convictions until you find out the hard way…we’re learned to ask everyone, no matter how respectable-looking. Sometimes we find out things that even their spouses didn’t know…