Scary story. But read this one from the comments:

>I’m not going to apologise. I’ve been fighting this brutal nonsense since I was an MP’s assistant in the late 1980s. At the time the system was that a Member of Parliament could intervene on any deportation and by contacting the Home Office get it stopped until any questionable aspects were resolved. One evening I was the last to leave the office when a call came through from Heathrow. Normally I left the immigration stops to the more experienced caseworkers, however there was nobody but me available.

> So I listened to a tearful South African chap explaining that he had flown to the UK to be at the wedding of his sole surviving relative, his sister, the following day. All his papers were in order, but the immigration people had made one attempt to contact his sister and on not having the phone answered (on the afternoon before her wedding) had told him he was to be deported to South Africa. I got out the instructions on handling such cases and having taken the chap’s number and all the relevant details, and instructed him to tell the immigration people that Stuart Holland MP’s office were in the process of getting the Home Office to put a stop on his deportation. I then called the Home Office and got them to agree to do their part of the business.

> Next I rang Heathrow to talk to the South African chap. I was told it was too late he was already on a plane to Luxemburg. I called the Home Office again and asked them to forward a further stop to Luxemburg.

> Again they agreed to do do. By now the senior caseworker had got home so I was able to get her to take over.

> I was distressed to learn from her that whilst the authorities in Luxemburg had received instructions from the UK Home Office to stop the deportation, they had ignored it and placed him on a flight back to South Africa anyway. Apparently the Home Office had also agreed to apologise “for the inconvenience” and if he wanted to come to the UK on the next available flight they would “ensure” that he would be able to enter the country. Since he had by this time already missed the wedding, and for the next couple of weeks his sister would be abroad on honeymoon, he naturally turned down this “kind offer”. I cried.

> It has not improved since then. It is now far worse.

Give small people a little bit of power and the results are very predictable.

Real lives > paper, that's the bit that people in uniform the world over seem to instantly forget the moment they put on their work clothes in the morning.

I've seen so many examples of this in my life by now that it hardly surprises me any more but I still absolutely boil at it every time I see another instance.

To be fair, this phenomenon is not exclusive to the uniformed. For example, I've talked to numerous freelancers who, after having a long discussion on the matter, basically admit to overcharging their small-business-owning clients in various ways.

They sell their clients 3000 euro WordPress sites with a custom theme where Wix/SquareSpace or one of the many solid $50 WordPress themes would suffice (or a plain custom theme for a few hundred bucks). A difference in money that is huge for a starting small business or freelancer!

Or worse, they sell a 3000 euro site with a self-built CMS and, when pressed, admit that part of the reason for not using WordPress or the like is that it makes the client rely on them more.

That's just an example in my field (or part of it). But based on the many odd jobs I've had and companies I've worked in, this is pretty common.

My impression so far is that when an interaction between people becomes an explicit transaction involving money, we sort of forget about the person and tend to think in more abstract measures like money or favors or whatnot. I don't like it, and (partly) as a result I'm making it harder for myself to get rich. Thankfully web development is enough in demand that I can make choices in the matter.

I think that interactions between - supposedly - consenting business owners and ordinary people at the mercy of those in uniform are not to be compared.

The first have plenty of options, the second have none.

We shouldn't examine a scenario, hold all but one variable constant, and see how things change? Why not?

The problem isn't really about influent academics traveling to Europe or USA. Their problems will be solved soon and generate some indignant news articles. To quote the article:

"This incident caused me some discomfort, difficult to deny. However, I can not help but think of all those who suffer these humiliations and legal violence without the protections I have been able to enjoy."

UK is not Europe.

Yes, it most definitely is part of Europe, and it is currently still part of the European Union too.

Member of the European Union, not member of the Schengen Area... UK has always been whimsical and not reflecting the "European" values... thus, UK is not Europe.

They're free to run things the way they like, but please don't keep telling that UK is Europe... especially after they chose and got the Brexit... not a single true european will endorse its mistakes.

Brexit is solely related to UK membership within the European Union. It is wrong to conflate being a part of Europe with being a part of the European Union.

Throughout history the ties between what is now the UK and what is now continental Europe are deep and inseparably intertwined (both culturally and geographically); it is absurd to to claim that the UK is "always whimsical" (whatever that means) and does not reflect "true" European values, whatever those may be. Look even closer within the UK and the Republic of Ireland...how is one European and the other not?!

The UK is and will foverver be part of Europe, period. This has no bearing on your opinion of who is or is not a "true European."

Too late to edit, but continental -> contiguous. UK is already continental Europe; they're on the same plate.

The common understanding of continental Europe does exclude the U.K.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. I was thinking in terms of Alaska vs the rest of the US.

> "not a single true european will endorse its mistakes"

But how will a true Scotsman feel about it?

the soviet union and eastern block were europe too, stop creating absurd distinctions.

Europe -> the EU, not Europe, the landmass.

So is Europe -> Eurozone? Is EU -> Eurozone? Is Schengen -> EU?

These are all quite clearly defined. Some (many?) may think that the EU is the same as Europe, but this is plainly false.

The EU is the EU, europe already has a definition, trying to conflate it with the European Union for ideological reasons is stupid.

I would never in my life read the word Europe and think of the EU first.

And when you hear 'America' you never think of the USA either?

The two are not equivalent. America is shorthand for the United States of. Mexico is short for Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Europe is a geographically defined continent.

If I were in Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Serbia, Macedonia, or the Ukraine would it not be appropriate to say I was in Europe?

Well technically I think it depends on which side of Iceland you're standing. To the west you're on the North American plate and to the east it's the Eurasian plate.

Consider that the only country within the North/Central/South American land masses explicitly having America as part of its name is the United States of America. It makes a lot of sense really considering the global dominance of the USA relative to its neighbors that "America" is colloquially understood to refer to the USA, and not Canada, or Panama, or all of South America.

The UK is a pain for Europeans to get into. It's trying very hard to be USA light when it comes to immigration.

This has everything to do with the UK not being in the Schengen area, and nothing to do with it being in the EU or Europe at large.

With an EU passport, one uses the same queues as Brits to get into the country.

Yes, and it takes forever. At least it did the last time I came to the UK (Dec 2015). The line started well into the hallway, a hundred meters or so before the counter.

So you think it's a pain for Europeans to get into the UK because they're treated like UK citizens.

No, it's a pain for everybody and I'm not a masochist.

What the UK wants to do to its own citizens is their problem, they can vote to change it.

The UK is part of the continent of Europe. It's also still a member of the EU for the time being.

The UK is actually an island off the continent of Europe. If we are being pedantic. It may belong to Europe culturally in some respects but geographically, it does not.

Geologically however : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Plate

To you and my sibling posts: could you both elaborate?

I'm inclined to agree that the UK differs from mainland Europe in a number of ways. I can't judge if this is the case for border control, but it wouldn't surprise. I'd really like to hear both sides elaborate rather than the 'yes', 'but no' comments so far.