IO and EEA nationals

[BAI]

Dear All

I wish to seek your opinion regarding an incident that I encountered the other day when I came back from Paris on the Eurostar. I'm a Czech citizen and have a 5 years Residence Permit in the UK. When it was my turn to be 'interrogated' by the IO at the desk, he looked at my passport and then asked me whether or not I lived in the UK. I said yes, as I work here. He then went on to ask me whether or not I was working. I said yes. He asked "Whereabouts?" at which point I gave him my company's name that I work for. He then waived me through.

Reading the BIA website it states that IO s can only ask questions regarding an EU citizen's ID. I think that this particular IO went beyond establishing my ID. I also think that had it been a Swedish or other Western European national, he would not have asked them anything... I intend to complain to the BIA about him. What do you think?

Thanks and regards

[Dawie]

You are right, they are not supposed to question EU citizens anymore than necessary to establish the person's identity. It might just be that they were trying to test you somehow and ensure that you weren't someone dodgy with a fake Czech passport. There are lots of dodgy fake passports around as highlighted by a recent BBC documentary which showed how easy it was to obtain fake Eastern European passports and use them to enter the UK.

I wouldn't take it personally!

[Decus et Tutamen]

It might just be that the IO didn't know that the Czech Republic is in the EU.

Passing through Gatwick recently, I overheard one strident Sarf-London-innit IO screech to her colleague, "'Ere, is Uruguay in Africa?"

The mind boggles.......

[petkanov]

in spring of 2007 me and my wife were returning to London from paris with eurostar. I am from Bulgaria and she is from Lithuania. When we got to the IO, we gave them our ID cards, not passports. He looked at us, looked at the IDs, looked at us, and then told us to wait. Then he went to the other IO and got a microscope, , and started looking at our IDs for about 5 minutes. The whole que were watching at us and were probably thinking that he got us. Then the other IO looked under the microscope and told him our IDs are ok. THen he came back and just gave us the card and waved us in. No apology nothing. He looked very sad that our IDs were ok:)