- "Border crossing" redirects here. For other uses, see Border Crossing
Border Crossing may refer to:* Border Crossing , an album by saxophonist Mike Osborne.* Border Crossing , a UK hip hop collective musical group.* Border Crossing , a 2001 novel by English author Pat Barker....
.
Border controls are measures used by a
countryA country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
to monitor or regulate its
borderBorders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...
s.
The control of the flow of many people, animals and goods across a border may be controlled by government Customs services. Security is enforced by various kinds of
Border GuardThe border guard, frontier guard, border patrol, border police, or frontier police of a country is a national security agency that performs border control, i.e., enforces the security of the country's national borders....
s and
Coast GuardA coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...
s. Official designations, jurisdictions and subordinations of these agencies vary.
Border controls exist to:
- regulate immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
(both legal and illegal)
- control the movement of citizens
- (in certain countries as USA and New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
) execute the customsCustoms is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
functions as to
- collect excise tax
- prevent smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
of drugs, weapons, endangered speciesAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
and other illegal or hazardous material
- control the spread of human or animal diseases (see also quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
)
The degree of strictness of border controls depends on the country and the border concerned. In some countries, control may be targeted at the traveller's national origin or other countries that have been visited. Others may need to be certain the traveller has paid the appropriate fees for their
visasA visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
and has future travel planned out of the country. Yet others may concentrate on the contents of the travellers baggage, and imported goods to ensure nothing is being carried that might bring a
biosecurityBiosecurity is a set of preventive measures designed to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious diseases, quarantined pests, invasive alien species, living modified organisms...
risk into the country. In the member states of the
Schengen agreementThe Schengen Agreement is a treaty signed on 14 June 1985 near the town of Schengen in Luxembourg, between five of the ten member states of the European Economic Community. It was supplemented by the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement 5 years later...
, internal border control is often virtually unnoticeable, and often only performed by means of random car or train searches in the
hinterlandThe hinterland is the land or district behind a coast or the shoreline of a river. Specifically, by the doctrine of the hinterland, the word is applied to the inland region lying behind a port, claimed by the state that owns the coast. The area from which products are delivered to a port for...
, while controls at borders with non-agreement states may be rather strict.
Sometimes border controls exist on internal borders within a country. For example, in the
People's Republic of ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, there are border controls at the borders among the mainland and the Special Administrative Regions of
Hong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and
MacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, even though they are part of the same country.
Further reading