By Lee Tulloch
Visas and passports: check and double check.
Last week, one of my well-travelled friends found himself in the kind of situation most travellers would dread: being held by immigration officials at a Russian airport.
He'd done everything correctly with his visa application. The result was a fresh visa affixed to his Australian passport. But the border agents in Moscow wanted more "papers". Ominously, he was taken aside to a small room, where he sat, nervously.
Several hours later he was on his way to Munich. The visa had misstated his entry date as one day later. So he had to cool his heels in Germany for the night before entering Russia again on the correct day.
He was a seasoned traveller, but he made a rookie's error: not checking the entry date on his visa with the arrival date on his ticket. It's like misreading your departure time as 7pm when the ticket states 17:00 hours.
It was an easy enough mistake and a common one. But in this chaotic world in which we find ourselves right now, get ready for a whole lot of pain with borders and visas as new geo-political orders change the rules, sometimes, as we've experienced recently with Donald J Trump's "Muslim ban", while the immigrant or traveller is mid-air.
It's not just Trump's presidency that has rattled the travelling world, but BREXIT as well. This is causing anguish for so many people globally who have relied on the smooth crossing of international borders to visit family and friends.
As tourists and business travellers we understand that visas are conditional on our behaving within that country's rules and mores while we are there. Even so, it's not totally unknown for tourists to be unexpectedly held up at borders, even briefly detained, because the border authority doesn't like something they see in their record. It can also be capricious.
For instance, I have an Australian friend, married to an American citizen, who once had her wallet stolen when visiting Australia, obtained a replacement green card from the US Embassy in Canberra, but was still held in a room at LA airport for half a day, with a hungry, screaming baby, while the agents contacted Canberra to check on its validity.
Similarly, I have a young Australian friend who once visited Iran and has grief from the US border agents every time he tries to enter their country because of it. It's long been the case that certain countries won't accept tourists who have been to countries with which they are in conflict.
Israel denies entry to people who have been to a slew of Islamic nations, and several of those countries reciprocate. America restricted its citizens from visiting Cuba before the 2014 revival of diplomatic relations. (Sensitive to this, most of these countries don't stamp tourists' passports.) Iran, a nation I hope to visit one day, has now banned all US citizens from entering the country, in retaliation for Trump blackballing Iranians. The world may soon become even more restricted.
When we travel we know that there can be unexpected problems at borders, even for those of us who by quirk of birth are not of a certain race or nationality. But most of us don't expect this. Australians can enter 169 countries without a visa or by obtaining a visa on arrival and it's usually a straightforward process.
I find if I'm travelling with my husband, there's no problem, but if I'm alone I often get the third-degree. Lord knows why at my age I'd want to relocate to England and steal a Brit's job, but I'm often questioned most thoroughly at Heathrow.
There's also the matter of profession. As an author, even one writing fiction and non-political travel stories (which generally encourage tourism to a given country), I am often on the ''sensitive profession'' list and can be denied entry if those countries feel any evil writing will ensue from the trip. If I'm going on holiday, I have to work extra hard to prove I am just vacationing, often signing documents to that effect.
I look at blanket immigration bans based on religion and/or place of birth and feel chilled. Consider the dystopian world we're already entering. It's not just pesky journalists but professions such as academics and workers for NGOs or humanitarian organisations that might be refused entry. Beloved Australian author Mem Fox found this out, to her distress, a couple of weeks ago.
One day they might decide they don't like schoolteachers, scientists or artists. It sounds all too familiar.
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