Dublin Passport Control Possible Discrimination

kravmaga

dowlingm wrote: »

OP: if you have concerns perhaps a polite letter to the head of the Airport Police detachment, cc'd to your local TD and the Minister for Justice would be in order. You might want to wait a few weeks though as the latter may have a change in personnel the way things are going.

Not sure when you were in Dublin Airport last as your profile location says Canada.

The Dept of Justice officals are manning the GNIB gates on a pilot project to release Garda onto frontline Policing duties. If it was indeed a uniformed/plain clothes AGS member he/she may ask questions.

Dublin Airport /Security do not man or have anything to do with Immigration controls.

aldeirm2

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Honestly, are you surprised you are stopped?
Unfortunately arabic-looking and arabic-named people fit the profile they're supposed to question because of world events and attitudes. Rightly or wrongly you just have to deal with it.

I was a little surprised I was stopped because no one else was, but that is ok as you mentioned, unfortunately there are a lot of stupid/crazy extremists out there giving us decent Muslims a bad name (bad being an understatement), my main concern were questions such as "do you have a job" I fail to see the correlation between holding a job and being a threat to national security.

aldeirm2

bk wrote: »

I don't believe this is discrimination or racism, I think it is just social profiling.

Now I know some in the US get their PC knickers in a twist about social profiling and consider it racist, but in reality it is just common sense human intelligence police work that has been done by good police officers for hundreds of years.

Is it really that awful that they will quickly wave your typical looking burned red off a flight from Madrid "paddy" who also sounds Irish, but might take a few seconds longer with someone who looks a little different?

In reality it is just common sense policing, I honestly don't believe there is any racism meant. I'd expect to get an extra grilling being white when entering an Arab or African country as I'm obviously not local.

If this is what goes for racism these days, then things are much better then I thought they were!

BTW If you think this is grilling, you should try going through Isreals Tel Aviv Airport, now they grill you. They literally spend about 30 minutes talking to you as they go through everything in your luggage.

BBTW Coming off a flight from Poland with my Polish girlfriend I actually found it quiet nice that they not only left everyone though quickly, but actually said hello in Polish!

They aren't really bad guys, they are just trying to do their job.

I didn't say it was a grilling, I said that I fail to see how questions such as "do you have a job" and "do you live here" will determine weather I am a threat to national security.

Being of Arab decent I expect some special attention unfortunately due to them idiots giving all of us a horrible name.

Also just to point out I have an Irish accent and I was not going in to tel aviv or any other foreign country, I was trying to get back in to my own country.

wexie

aldeirm2 wrote: »

... I said that I fail to see how questions such as "do you have a job" and "do you live here" will determine weather I am a threat to national security.

I think it's probably more so to gauge your interaction with them rather than the actual answers to the questions. They probably just wanted to see if you were nervous etc. So they have to ask you something to get you to talk and if they asked something like : "do you like biscuits ?" people might get so confused / freaked out that the response becomes hard to gauge.

While it would sure seem that going through an airport may well be more stressfull for you than it would be for most of us, to me this doesn't sound like a case of racism.

bk

aldeirm2 I think you missed the point of what I was saying.

I know they weren't grilling you, and the questions they asked weren't actually important.

The point of the questions wasn't the actual answers, it has more to do with seeing how you react:

- Do you look nervous when asked questions?
- Do you take too long or struggle with the answers?
- Are you too quick with the answers, thus seeming prepared?
- What is your body language like?

A good cop will be able to read your body language and the way you answer the questions and quickly decide if you deserve more attention or not?

The reality is because you don't look "typical" Irish he decided to take a closer look at you and asked some questions, but given that you have an Irish accent, he was probably quickly satisfied that you were fine and it is why he didn't spend even more time answering questions.

The questions also give the officer more time to check if your passport might be forged.

Again the whole point of this isn't to be racist, but to catch people who have forged documents and who are trying to enter the country illegally.

What is the alternative to this? Immigration control spend 10 minutes talking to everyone in detail to make sure they are EU citizens and thus we end up with 2 hour queues at emigration control? Or that they do the sensible thing and leave people who look obviously Irish through fast and spend a few seconds longer with people who don't fit the typical profile?

It is just common sense policing and not really racism.

US border control do the same, they spend about 5 minutes "chatting" to you while they finger print you and take your picture. They'll ask you are you going for business or pleasure? Where you will be staying? Who do you work for? etc.

Funny the last time I went to the US, I ended up having a long friendly chat with the US border control guy, he asked me did I work for tech company a or b?!! I said I worked for a, he was like yeah there are a lot travelling through from a and b today for a tech conference. Then he proceeded to ask me what programming language did I use? etc.

Now that was on the ball social profiling.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Oh yes you do. Been to Poland 6 times in the last year. Every time they take significantly longer to check my passport then my Polish Girlfriends national ID card. Mine gets thoroughly checked while see just gets a quick nod. You also have to go through an extra immigration control check when leaving Poland (unlike Ireland) and from strange reason they take even longer checking you passport there.

Again nothing racist about it, just that flights to and from Poland tend to be 95% Polish, so me being Irish is a little different and they spend longer checking it.

bk

To develop my point further. What they are trying to stop is people entering the country illegally with fake or altered documents.

The problem with this is that some fakes can be really good and it can take an expert a few minutes under a microscope to spot them.

Obviously it is impossible to spend minutes checking each passport in detail like this. So instead they use common sense:

Person A approaches security, they look Irish, don't look nervous, have an Irish accent, then you take a very quick look at the passport to make sure it isn't the back of a kellogs box.

Person B approaches security, they don't look Irish. So you spend 30 seconds longer asking one or two questions to see how they respond, do they look nervous and spend a bit longer examining the passport for any obvious signs of forgery.

In this case person b (you) had an Irish accent, and wasn't nervous in your answers so no problem go right ahead.

Person C approaches security, they don't look Irish or look nervous. You ask a few questions and they stumble or answer in a nervous manner. You probably ask them to step aside and take them for a more detailed interview. While been interviewed a specialist checks the passport in detail.

It is just common sense, not racism.

BTW they do this in Poland too, speak Polish fluently, well you probably are Polish and not sneaking in, don't speak Polish and they spend a bit longer looking at your passport. And this is true for many European countries with unique languages, I've found exactly the same when entering Norway, Lithuania, etc. Being able to speak the language allows them to quickly filter people. We don't have that in English speaking countries so much, so it tends more to accents and in Ireland how people look.

hfallada

At least they are enforcing some kind of border control now. Like how many undocumented get through Dublin airport with forged passports and the passport control dont seem to care

dowlingm

kravmaga wrote: »

Not sure when you were in Dublin Airport last as your profile location says Canada.

The Dept of Justice officals are manning the GNIB gates on a pilot project to release Garda onto frontline Policing duties. If it was indeed a uniformed/plain clothes AGS member he/she may ask questions.

Dublin Airport /Security do not man or have anything to do with Immigration controls.

I forgot it was GNIB not Airport Police - will correct my post above. Last time I was in DUB was last August and it was a uniformed officer at T1.

Victor

hfallada wrote: »

At least they are enforcing some kind of border control now. Like how many undocumented get through Dublin airport with forged passports and the passport control dont seem to care

Oh really?

n97 mini

OP, you kind of answered your own question. "Arab people, also known as Arabs (Arabic: عرب‎, ʿarab), are a panethnicity[15] primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa."

So Arabs would not be typical in Ireland.

If I lived in a primarily Arab country I would expect to be stopped regularly at Passport Control.

Strumms

For what it's worth I always find the Guards on the immigration desks at Dublin airport very pleasant... Usually it's a quick check of the passport and a "welcome home Sean" in my experience. The fact that the Guard in question briefly stopped and asked you about your work or living circumstances is hardly cause for accusations or racism or indeed the sensationalisim that seems to be infered over somone just doing their job. He is just doing his job.. Asking trigger questions to check you out... You were not be first and won't be the last, Nazi interrogation. It ain't.

I remember during the tail end of the troubles and it was a regular thing to have to deal with very passive aggressive police in the UK who would get very smart with you to try and get a rise out of you. The guys they had posted at Holyhead were assholes.. I was also stopped once at the old Waterloo Eurostar terminal,, taken to one side, had my passport taken only for it to be returned with an apology and that they had mistaken me for a killer on the run... I guess I must have one of those faces... ,!

Carawaystick

I'm surprised with the amount of posters saying treating an Irish citizen differently based on his/her race isn't discrimination or racism. It clearly is, by definition.

Whether it is right or wrong for gardaí to discriminate so, is a topic for discussion.

Mrs OBumble

I think Bk is right on the money.

But I would like someone to tell me what it means to look "typically Irish".

FWIW, I believe that every time I go into an airport with a flight booking or off a flight:

• They're expecting me based on bookings or checkins at the other end
• They're using CCTV + facial recognition to spot me as I walk in.
• This plus their risk profiling software has most of the say over whether I'm stopped: Provided nothing about my trip looks unusual, I won't be hassled at flight security, border control, drug checks, etc

Maybe I've just done too many Oz - NZ trips, where the above is definitely true. But I would expect it here too.

n97 mini

bk wrote: »

We don't have that in English speaking countries so much, so it tends more to accents and in Ireland how people look.

And more to the point we're an island. Up until the late 90s we had virtually no immigration worth talking about.

bk

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

But I would like someone to tell me what it means to look "typically Irish".

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

bk

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You are absolutely correct, you don't have to answer any questions, in which case the Garda will direct you to a private interview room while your passport is thoroughly checked and they are satisfied you match the passport.

In reality it is quicker to just answer the stupid questions and get on with your life.

coylemj

bk wrote: »

You forgot the white socks, shorts, Laois GAA shirt and black shoes.

Carawaystick

n97 mini wrote: »

And more to the point we're an island. Up until the late 90s we had virtually no immigration worth talking about.

You might have forgotten those britons evicting Irish over the years, especially in Ulster, Laois, etc

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

AlekSmart

bk wrote: »

To develop my point further. What they are trying to stop is people entering the country illegally with fake or altered documents.

The problem with this is that some fakes can be really good and it can take an expert a few minutes under a microscope to spot them.

It is just common sense, not racism.

The problem with common sense is that it ain't that common at all....

An interesting High Court case ongoing at the moment,which although ostensibly about an illiterate Roma woman's fight to have her correct name on her daughters birth certificate,is equally to do with the State attempting to maintain the integrity of it's entire Registration System .....I would suggest that there are many interested parties hanging on Judge kearns reserved judgement....

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0529/453418-case-taken-against-state-over-name-on-birth-cert/

A birth certificate was intended to be a snapshot of the situation at the time, he said, adding that Mrs Caldaras had chosen to use another name at the time of her daughter's birth when there were two possible names in use.

However, Mr Regan said to "amend the register at will" would affect the integrity of the registration process. It was done in only the most limited cases, he said.

To retrospectively change it would create problems and potentially problems for the administration of justice and for the tracing of individuals.

If the OP considers his experience at Dublin Airport was OTT now,just wait until this judgement is delivered,cos if it goes against the State,it effectively opens our system of basic identification (The Birth Cert) to easy manipulation....with the only response being to move to an Israeli style system of assiduous questioning.

n97 mini

Carawaystick wrote: »

You might have forgotten those britons evicting Irish over the years, especially in Ulster, Laois, etc

That's not immigration. If you're referring about plantation, well they didn't look much (any?) different from the locals either.

who the fug

coylemj wrote: »

Consider yourselves lucky, time was back in the 1970s when the IRA were exploding bombs in GB and the Irish got serious aggro from the UK cops on border points, especially coming off a ferry. Any Paddy with a beard was guaranteed an aggressive 'welcome' by the cops in Heathrow and Holyhead which involved getting taken aside and being treated as a second-class citizen, even with the theory of free travel between the two countries.

Answering a few questions at passport control nowadays is a breeze in comparison, let's keep things in perspective.

13 year old me was got a bit of grilling once at East Midlands airport, till my German Aunt told them to stop being so stupid, joining a ship in gibraltar couple months after the shooting was fun.

OP best one I ever saw was one of them Mission priests asking my mate what part of Africa he was from, Dublin was the reply. That shut the fecker up

Del2005

aldeirm2 wrote: »

I was a little surprised I was stopped because no one else was, but that is ok as you mentioned, unfortunately there are a lot of stupid/crazy extremists out there giving us decent Muslims a bad name (bad being an understatement), my main concern were questions such as "do you have a job" I fail to see the correlation between holding a job and being a threat to national security.

As said the question isn't relevant it's your reaction they are looking for. Saying it's none of your business is a valid answer.

Carawaystick wrote: »

I'm surprised with the amount of posters saying treating an Irish citizen differently based on his/her race isn't discrimination or racism. It clearly is, by definition.

Whether it is right or wrong for gardaí to discriminate so, is a topic for discussion.

So how else are we supposed to protect our boarders from illegal immigration and false asylum seekers, since we have no direct connections to the majority of airports, if we can't discriminate? Stop everyone and ask them all the exact same set of questions!

murphaph

Ireland is changing. Our demographics are not static. Do people think UK border officers ask black British citizens if they have jobs because blacks make up just a minority of the UK population and lots of would be illegal immigrants happen to be black?

n97 mini

You have to also remember that while EU citizens have free movement into Ireland, non EU citizens do not. Despite that we still have plenty of illegals and an asylum system that certainly seems to be tested to its limits considering the large failure rates.

househero

aldeirm2 wrote: »

I'm wondering if anyone has ever been questioned going in to Dublin on their Irish or EU passports?

Yes I have at least a couple of times, in fact they used to do it more often 15 years ago. I'm Irish, I look Irish and I didn't even think twice about it, it was informal, as your 'incident' sounds. I answered and went on with my day.

If you think it was racist. Make a formal complaint about it, either with your local TD, the police or directly to minister alan ****ter. It will be taken very seriously, an 'investigation' in to the 'incident' will probably be conducted at great cost.

Personally I think your being a bit soft lad. I have seen MUCH worse treatment (and have been personally subjected to far worse) in England. They are not racist in England, they pick on everybody to make it nice and fair. I've seen grandmas walking canes being taken off them (presumably because she was a drug smuggling terrorist) I purposely sat next to an immagration officer in Manchester airport (my flight wasn't for another 2hrs) to listen to him abuse a Muslim business man travelling to France, the poor man was clearly no threat, he looked better dressed in a smart suit and he was very well spoken, but he missed his flight AND his business meeting because of the ridiculous questions fired at him for an hour and half with the added indignity of being interviewed publically in a criwded departures lounge, he was asked LOTS of very personal questions and i felt sorry for him. The flight attendants actually came over to tell them the flight was leaving but he was not done answering the immigration officers questions. This was LEAVING England, the trouble he must have had on his return must have been insane.

If you feel like you were singled out because you look different, you are free to use the 'other' passport que, as I often do when the EU que is too bloody long. They seem happy to take a glance at my passport without asking any questions and letting me through. The benefits of an Irish passport are great, no EU visas and free European travel. A couple of questions every now and then are nothing but routine.

househero

Strumms wrote: »

a quick check of the passport and a "welcome home Sean" The guys they had posted at Holyhead were assholes.. .. ,!

I love the welcome home, I'm smiling when I walk back on to Irish soil, gonna miss it when we all get computer checked in the future.

By the way mate they STILL have that asshole at holyhead. Travelled 2 years ago. Not going on the boat again. The c unit asked me a rake load of personal questions for no reason, and he was very very aggressive, he shoved his big meat head through my car window to ask me face 2 face, I wasn't even ENTERING their crap country, I was coming home. Why he was so jumped up I have no idea and why he was so interested in me leaving is still a mystery to me.

trashcan

Del2005 wrote: »

So how else are we supposed to protect our boarders from illegal immigration and false asylum seekers, since we have no direct connections to the majority of airports, if we can't discriminate? Stop everyone and ask them all the exact same set of questions!

Just a point on that, if someone turns up at immigration and states that they want to claim asylum they have to be allowed to do so.

On the general point, it's unfortunate for the OP, but he admitted himself he doesn't look "traditionally" Irish for want of a better phrase. Unfortunately too, people do use false passports, so the Immigration officials wouldn't be doing their job properly if they didn't make some basic enquiries. And yeah, to an extent it is racial profiling. There may be a lot of black irish citizens who will experience something similar in the coming years, though probably less so as it becomes more common. It's not even primarily about terrorism I don't think. More just basic immigration control. It doesn't sound like he had too hard a time, so while he may be entitled to be a little peeved, it sounds to me like it's just one of those things that maybe you have to grin and bear (well maybe not grin:))

n97 mini

trashcan wrote: »

Just a point on that, if someone turns up at immigration and states that they want to claim asylum they have to be allowed to do so.

There are broadly two reasons people will claim asylum: they came here to do so, or they were caught at a port of entry trying to enter illegally and rather than being deported on the spot they claimed asylum.