Does intra-Schengen removal count as deportation or removal from any country?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 20 Jul, 2023
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I tried finding out anything on the local government websites but even in Swedish it is hard to find them using any specific words. These border controls are designed to make immigrants apply for asylum on the spot or return to the country they come from. Sweden as a country is not interested in making this have a lasting effect on your future travels, but cultural and political wishes are not always aligned with the bureaucracy so I would not trust this as an answer.
Your best bet may be to call the Swedish Police on their non-emergency number with your question: +46 77 114 14 00
Ask if the event is registered with your name anywhere. Also ask if they have a record of the document you signed, and if they can send you a copy.
On the other side of the pond, on the US/Canada border, it is routine for a traveler to be told (over something non-scary like “forgot ID”), in as many words, that “this is a really good time for you to withdraw your application to enter our country”.
(Because if you pressed onward with your application, you would be refused, and that would have immigration consequences for you later.)
What follows is an explanation that
since you withdrew your application, it means you did not even attempt to enter our country (merely visiting the Immigration office to discuss entering the country does not count as “entering the country”). If you are asked in the future “were you ever refused entry in the past”, the correct answer is “no, you were not refused entry”. To be clear, this is not you being refused entry, this is you “willingly deciding not to enter”.
For a simple reason such as “forgot passport”, and given the ease with which they allowed you to re-enter, you might ask someone to translate that Swedish (post it here?) and see if the above is exactly what the Swedish authorities did with you. If so, congratulations. You did not enter Sweden.
For the purposes of Swedish law you were ‘avvisad’, which is translated as ‘refused entry’ in the official English edition of the Aliens Act. This term covers all kind of rejections at the border. Someone who is already present in Sweden and for some reason found unworthy to stay, will be ‘expelled’. Swedish law uses the term ‘expulsion’ for any act of ‘throwing someone out’, be it by leaving voluntarily or escorted with force. The terms ‘removal’ and ‘deporation’ are not used at all in Swedish alien law.
Answering you question will however depend on the definition of the terms ‘removal’ and ‘deportation’ in the jurisdiction you are involved with in the future.
Gayot Fow used to claim that being refused entry to the UK is considered a ‘removal’. I am not familiar with UK immigration law, but if that is true, the action taken against you seem at least to fall within the definition of ‘removal’ as used in UK law.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘