[wobbleblob]

I used to get stopped, singled out and searched at the borders all the time, but the expansion of the Schengen zone put an end to that years ago. A young man, traveling on his own from Amsterdam (especially on a Dutch passport) is a red flag to these officious pricks.

It's disturbing that the Germans unilaterally decided to abolish the Schengen zone. Temporarily they say.

By now I guess I've aged out of the target group, so they leave me alone. And I don't look like the OP.

[ThePhysicist]

As you say, Schengen does not allow for large-scale border controls in Europe. Random checks are allowed though if they have the purpose of stopping illegal activity such as drug or money trafficking (e.g. from Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Switzerland).

The stricter controls that have been in place for the last weeks, which also only involve randomized searches on a slightly larger scale but only at several points of the border, are also legally covered under the Schengen accord and serve the purpose to get a better handle on the thousands of unregistered immigrants flowing into Germany every day (this year alone, more than 1.5 million regugees might come to Germany, many of them completely unregistered). Concerning the scale of the current crisis I think these measures are absolutely appropriate and not overly extreme.

[wobbleblob]

I don't think this had anything to do with refugees. They busted the OP because they assumed they'd find drugs on him.

Young man - check. From Amsterdam - check. Dutch passport - check. Dark skin - check. Dreadlocks - check

In their mind this kid was going to have dope on him no matter what.

[allendoerfer]

We have to tackle the problem together, to keep accomplishments like Schengen, because the argument works the other way round, too:

The Netherlands have much stricter asylum laws than Germany has, with or without border controls. Maybe you could take some of the 1.5 million refugees, that will arrive in Germany this year. You took only 25k last year. Stuff like the border controls are really just measurements to prevent our versions of Geert Wilders from gaining traction.

[wobbleblob]

NL doesn't have stricter asylum laws than Germany, despite the big mouth of the guy you just mentioned. I'm also skeptical about the 1.5 million figure. People with a political agenda are putting intimidating figures like that in the media.

Fewer come here because of the location - this would only be your first entry point in the EU if you arrive at the airport - and the fact that it's not a famous, charismatic country. They want to go where they have friends and family first, failing that, they want to go to an English speaking country, failing that, next choice are Germany and France. Any other place they end up is mostly settling for what happens to work out.

Any way, I used to get a similar (less extreme) treatment way back in the 90's, before refugees were an issue.

Edit: and I obviously don't look like a refugee. The events destribed by the OP were obviously a drug bust.

[wyldfire]

The Schengen zone is pretty valuable to the EU and to Germany, it seems likely they'll re-establish it.