Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ssijak 459 days ago
"Switzerland by train and in the middle of the night being woken up by border guards with barking German shepherds asking for my passport"

What is exactly wrong here? They checked your passport and went on their way, that is how it works.

3 comments

It was hilarious seeing the difference between the French and Swiss border guards on train rides.

French: laughing and talking, checking everyone's passports

Swiss: eyes scanning the car, papers please

Why do you need guard dogs to check a passport? Is it the most effective system to do sweep-checks in the middle of the night? Why not check as you're boarding or de-training? What happens if something is wrong or not aligned? Is a stressful situation the best way to conduct routine processes for anybody?

HOW shit goes down is really important. When systems reduce people to cogs in a machine they lose empathy and personal responsibility. This is why we end up with guards who know nothing, treat people like cattle, and are "just doing their job". It does not lead to good results.

Drug drogs I suspect.
Nothing wrong. The previous poster claimed that the US Border patrol was excessively scary but my point is this happens everywhere around the world.
The part OP is scared of and points to is some border guard revoking your visa, which probably implies you losing your job and having to leave the country you live in. This is scary because it is a very big, bad outcome to be totally in the authority of a random border guard to decide. Waking out by guards and dogs barking on a train is scary in its own right the moment it happens, but we are talking about totally different things whose only intersection is "border guards" and the emotional category of "scared".
They detained her for 2 weeks, while the lights where always on. I think that is a bit more then aggressively asking for papers.
Even if that were true it doesn't justify it.