Chess wrote:Or what happens if you fill in the form when you are on a plane crossing the UK airspace??? do you say you were in the UK or Not????
It is funny, but does happen... The physical/geographical "in limbo" status is resolved by various legal approaches, depending on the context of the situation.
U.S. bound passengers routinely fill out their I-94 arrival-departure record in advance while still in international waters or airspace, and for procedural purposes the form is convsidered to be filled at border crossing. I.e. the argument here is that since you are bound to make a landing (barring an accident), the law may as well consider you landed already.
At the same time I can see an argument that for a variety of purposes (but not for all!), including those of litigation rights, "landed" would mean "once admitted into country by immigration control", i.e. if one fills out an immigration-related form prior to having been inspected by IO, one is asserting that (s)he is already in legal status in the country, which may not realise for whatever reason.
Another interesting illustration is POE checkpoints. For example, U.S. IOs at Canada-U.S. border crossings have vast decision powers, including that of confiscating the means of transportation (car, boat, etc.). In order to for this not to raise international problems, the checkpoints physically are some way inside the U.S. territory, i.e. when one is about to be inspected they've already crossed the physical border and are on the U.S. soil, even though not so for immigration reasons.
An English friend of mine used to drive to his workplace in the Middle East from London by car (in the 60-s). He said he always made sure his tank is full of gas when approaching the international border areas: some countries had quite a distance between their checkpoints, and if anything would happen after clearing one but before reaching the other, they wouldn't come out to help you in the "no one's land".
I was once in a bad car accident in the middle of Lincoln tunnel under the Hudson River going from New Jersey to Manhattan. I had to leave the scene along with others involved in order to clear the lane and allow the building traffic jam to clear. Once on the Manhattan side, we were interviewed by the police, who wanted to know where the accident had occured. I said, just about in the middle of the tunnel. Well, the officer said, but was it closer to New Jersey or New York? Officer, you wouldn't believe it, but it happened right in the middle. Well, he goes, but I can't write "in the middle" here (pointing to the form he is filling out). Looking straight into his eyes I said that the accident happened on the New York side of the tunnel. "There we go", said he and gave me a big smile
Sorry for this diversion, just have a very special interest in the matter of "gray areas", legal or otherwise, so wanted to share some thoughts and observations...
and found this a really
