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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

They ask these questions to me all the time and I'm a (non-dual) citizen. The EU and especially the UK is more intrusive about their questions. Switzerland is/was the least intrusive. China never asks me any questions, but Thailand and Japan might.

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My experience in the EU is that, even for EU citizens, the UK and (a somewhat distance second) Spain can be quite intrusive. For the rest of the EU and Switzerland, they almost never ask anything.

But I definitely agree that China seems to be the "easiest" in this sense. No questions at all. :)

When I crossed over from Kazakhstan into China I got the most thorough luggage search I've ever had (never been to the US). Everything taken apart and went through; I was carrying the card game Citadels and had to struggle a little to explain what it was (my fault - I speak neither Kazakh or Russian nor Chinese, he spoke a little English). It was all very professional and courteous, and actually over quite quickly, but it was thorough, and having soldiers in uniform going through your stuff while you stand there in your pyjamas is always going to be a bit intimidating.

Good to know. That's actually a border crossing I'm planning to do relatively soon.

I've only ever had my luggage searched at customs in the states...multiple times, very thorough. I think they were looking for pirated DVDs or something.

With my nonexistent grasp of the flows of illegal goods I guessed Kazakhstan-China was a heroin route, but I really have no idea.

Subversive Uighur material is more likely, or maybe guns?

It was only afterwards that I realised I'd been reading the hunger games on my kindle at the time (which they did get as far as turning on); pretty sure that's illegal. Oh well.

Entering Switzerland: "What are you doing here? How long are you staying?" (5 minutes tops)

Entering France: takes my passport, opens it, stamps it, no questions asked

Entering UK: tons of grilling, return ticket, etc, etc

That's with a non EU passport.

I have never been asked a single question at Swiss immigration (at Geneva airport), but its been 5 years since I lived there. It was just wait in the foreigner line for about 5 minutes, get through.

Yes, if you are registered by the immigration authorities they skip the questions.

Even if you are registered by some other country in Europe (which was my case, they asked that before I said that I was registered)

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