Job Discussion Forums

[Moore]

But really: has anybody ever met anybody who has actually received a five-year ban? - I mean in person, not someone you heard about but never met?

(I heard about one girl who gave a British customs offical a bit of lip on the way back to Spain and got deported, but that was a story I heard and I never actually met the girl in question).

The thing is, I meet a lot of Americans here who have overstayed significantly, and obviously I don't often see them afterwards, but to be fair I'm still in touch with a fair number via Facebook as are a lot of my friends and nobody has ever mentioned any five year ban/stamp or anything even slightly dodgy when leaving.

In terms of leaving the EU by road in distant ex-Soviet Union states or taking a merchant boat, I think that is strictly for ex-services types: I have heard of people "losing" their passports while in Spain and getting a new one from the embassy with no entry stamp/records, but again, that's "heard-of" as opposed to actually met.

The Spanish authorities are principally looking for:

a) terrorists
b) drugs traffickers
c) illegal Africans/South Americans

...I think a couple of thousand middle class white North Americans coming here and teaching English and keeping themselves to themselves ranks alongside dropping a piece of litter on the street in their list of priorities.

Spiral is absolutely right to warn North Americans of the potential risks of coming here, but compared to Australian immigration who I have had direct experience with (2 of my best mates got deported for overstaying withing 48 hours of police knocking at their door), Spain still has a long way to go in terms of enforcing immigration policy as regards US citizens.

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[spiral78]

I think that this year is likely to be a bit different than in the past, when, I agree, Spanish authorities were notoriously uninterested in overstaying North Americans.

No, I haven't personally seen people be deported from Spain. But, yes, I did see this happen on two occasions in the Netherlands. And I actually know three people who did get the 5 year ban stamp from the Czech Republic...

The new laws as of Jan 1 this year will have some impact - though I can't say how much the risk has increased - it has.

[jonniboy]

[gracias]

Jonniboy, it really seems you are just dipping into this thread and seeing only what you want to see. I suggest you go back to the top, start there and scroll down. And if you can't make positive, on-topic, informed contributions, then it's better if you don't bother. Thanks.

[jonniboy]

[gracias]

Jonniboy,

This is going to be my last post on this subject because you seem to be determined to get into the typical failed EFL teacher "I'm more clever than you because ..." argument.

If you READ the thread you will note the following:

1) The law has changed enormously since 01 Jan of this year, with the result that it is no longer the case that overstaying Americans will be welcomed onto a plane at Barajas by the kind of laid-back Spanish official who might have been present here fifty years ago in some kind of romance novel. Instead, an overstaying American is more likely than not to be taken away, imprisoned, questioned and deported with a 5-year ban on entering Europe.

2) The examples provided above are REAL ones. Both methods have been used by Americans that I know who had been working illegally in Spain and knew that they had overstayed so long that they were risking imprisonment, deportation and a 5-year ban. More importantly, these methods WORKED. If you take a fruit boat to Ghana from Spain it costs about 150 Euro all-in and they will make sure you are not checked at the port. If you travel by backroads out to somewhere like Georgia, yes it will cost more but the people that did this were prepared to take the risk, because they needed to reenter Spain legally.

3) Do I need to say more? You seem totally unaware of the situation now in Spain, your comments make this embarrassingly plain, and yet you continue to vent your "I'm a failure so I'll do EFL and then someone will think I'm clever" attitude on this board.

As I said, I'm not going to get into this any more. So you are free to leave another pointless and oh-so-witty remark below. Have fun, you sound like a really nice, well-informed guy.

[jonniboy]

Au contraire, if you'd actually bothered to read the thread you'd see that no one as yet has come up with a single example of anyone getting caught / deported / banned at Barajas or anywhere else in Spain. Yet you continue to advise people to illegally enter... well first it was Russia which at least has a border with the EU... now it's Georgia which doesn't even have an EU border (!) This means that as well as crossing the Schengen zone, our intrepid teacher (or anyone else daft enough to take such "advice") would also have to risk illegally entering and exiting non-implemented Schengen members such as Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey!!!

You see why I have such difficulty in believing the stories of these friends of yours? Did they also live under the bridge and bother passing travellers?

[Moore]

Err, I don't want to get involved in any sort of argument here, but I have just looked up Ghana in my atlas and it does appear to be 2000 miles from Spain. That is an awfully long ride in a fruit boat. Still, for 150 euros it would be pretty good value.



________________________________________________________________________
...Jobs and language exchanges in Madrid, Barcelona and Berlin... www.lingobongo.com

...send your c.v. around ALL the schools in Madrid, Barcelona or Berlin in one hit with our c.v. sending service... www.lingobongo.com

[Marcoregano]

Schengen? Isn't that the name of the guy who runs the bordello in Deadwood?

[tvik]

if the new law has been in effect for six months then don't you think people would have heard something by now?

[Insubordination]

[spiral78]

I have heard of at least a dozen teachers into police trouble over the new law this year already. I haven't heard that it's happened in Spain (yet).

I know that there were some milder punishments given to people who came into the EU before the new law went into effect. However, everybody should know about it when entering in 2008.

[travellingscot]

Like Moore i do not want to get involved in the argument part of this thread, but i am curious how it is possible to slip out of a country without getting your passport stamped [As was suggested in the fruit boat to Ghana scenario],then appear at the border again trying to enter with no exit stamp.
It is possible to get a new passport issued when overseas,and UK ones are issued blank as regards details of entry and length of stay.

[jonniboy]

Lads, that was the argument in a nutshell. I've absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it is possible to cross borders illegally but for the average Joe, illegally crossing the number of borders that say Georgia would require just isn't a feasible option. The risks would vastly outweigh the risk of getting caught in Spain (and if I were in that position I'd rather get caught somewhere like Spain than Georgia.) Anyway until new information on the risks (or lack of them) of getting caught in Spain comes up there's nothing more to say on this thread.

[Moore]

That and the risk of manslaughter charges when an immigration official dies of p*ssing themself laughing when they discover a rich westerner doing the exact reverse trip to what thousands of immigrants risk their lives doing every year.





________________________________________________________________________
...Jobs and language exchanges in Madrid, Barcelona and Berlin... www.lingobongo.com

...send your c.v. around ALL the schools in Madrid, Barcelona or Berlin in one hit with our c.v. sending service... www.lingobongo.com