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In general, a port of entry (POE) is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. It typically has
border security
Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...
staff and facilities to check
passport
A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...
s and visas and to inspect luggage to assure that
contraband is not imported.
International airport
An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...
s are usually ports of entry, as are road and rail crossings on a land
border
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...
.
Seaports
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...
can be used as ports of entry only if a dedicated
customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
presence is posted there. The choice of whether to become a port of entry is up to the civil authority controlling the port.
Airport of entry
An airport of entry (AOE) is an
airport
An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...
that provides customs and immigration services for incoming flights. These services allow the airport to serve as an initial port of entry for foreign visitors arriving in a country.
Terminology
The word "international" in an airport's name usually means that it is an airport of entry, but many airports of entry do not use it. Airports of entry can range from large urban airports with heavy scheduled passenger service, like
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...
, to small rural airports serving
general aviation
General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...
exclusively. Often, smaller airports of entry are located near an existing port of entry such as a bridge or seaport.
On the other hand, however, some "former" airports of entry chose to leave their name with the word "international" in it, even though they no longer serve international flights. One example is
Osaka International Airport. Even when it had ended all international services and became a purely domestic airport after the opening of
Kansai International Airport
Kansai International Airport ( ja, 関西国際空港, Kansai Kokusai Kūkō) commonly known as is the primary international airport in the Greater Osaka Area of Japan and the closest international airport to the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and ...
in 1994, it kept its original name of "Osaka International Airport". Many airports in the nearby region have the same situation, like
Taipei Songshan Airport
Taipei Songshan Airport is a regional airport and military airbase located in Songshan District, Taipei, Taiwan. The airport covers an area of .
The civilian section of Songshan Airport has scheduled flights to domestic destinations in Taiwa ...
. Songshan retained its official Chinese name, Taipei International Airport, after
Chiang Kai-shek International Airport
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is an international airport serving Taipei and northern Taiwan. Located about west of Taipei in Dayuan District, Taoyuan, the airport is Taiwan's largest. It was also the busiest airport in Taiwan before ...
(now
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is an international airport serving Taipei and northern Taiwan. Located about west of Taipei in Dayuan District, Taoyuan, the airport is Taiwan's largest. It was also the busiest airport in Taiwan before t ...
) opened. Similar cases of transitions of international airports such as
Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
,
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
,
Nagoya
is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most pop ...
,
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
,
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
,
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
, etc.
For the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, flights between countries in the
Schengen Area are considered domestic regarding passport and immigration check. Several international airports have only intra Schengen-flights. Several of these have occasional charter flights to foreign countries.
Stateless persons
Some cases of
statelessness
In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are st ...
have occurred in airports of entry forcing people to
live in the airport for an extended period. One of the most famous cases was that of
Mehran Karimi Nasseri
Mehran Karimi Nasseri ( fa, مهران کریمی ناصری pronounced ; 1945 – 12 November 2022), also known as Sir, Alfred Mehran, was an Iranian refugee who lived in the departure lounge of Terminal 1 in Charles de Gaulle Airport from 26 ...
, an Iranian national who lived in the
Charles de Gaulle Airport
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...
in France for approximately eighteen years after being denied entry into France and not having a country of origin to be returned to due to claiming his Iranian nationality had been revoked. Nasseri's experience was loosely adapted by two films, the 1993 film ''
Tombés du ciel
''Lost in Transit'' (original title: ''Tombés du ciel''; literally "Fallen from the Sky") is a 1993 French comedy-drama film directed by Philippe Lioret. The film is about a man who loses his passport and spends a couple of days at a Paris airpo ...
'' and the 2004 film ''
The Terminal
''The Terminal'' is a 2004 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stanley Tucci. The film is about an Eastern European man who is stuck in New York's John F. Kennedy ...
''.
Zahra Kamalfar
Zahra Kamalfar is an Iranian refugee living in Canada. She was originally from the Muslim Dervish sect and her husband was executed in Iranian custody. After her husband's death, she fled the country with her son Davood and daughter Anna. From T ...
, an Iranian national who attempted to travel to Canada via Russia and Germany using forged documents, lived in the
Sheremetyevo International Airport
Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport ( rus, links=no, Международный аэропорт Шереметьево имени А. С. Пушкина, p=ʂɨrʲɪˈmʲetʲjɪvə ''Mezhdunarodny aeroport Sheremetyevo imen ...
in Russia for eleven months before being granted refugee status by Canada to reunite with her family in Vancouver.
In the United States
The formal definition of a port of entry in the United States is something entirely different. According to the
Code of Federal Regulations
In the law of the United States, the ''Code of Federal Regulations'' (''CFR'') is the codification of the general and permanent regulations promulgated by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government of the United States. ...
, "the terms 'port' and 'port of entry' incorporate the geographical area under the jurisdiction of a port director." In other words, a port of entry may encompass an area that includes several border crossings, as well as some air and sea ports. This also means that not every border crossing is a port of entry. There are two reasons for this:
# Every port of entry must have a Port Director, which is a higher pay grade than a typical border inspector. The U.S. government has determined that some small border crossings do not need their own Port Directors. As a result, border outposts like Churubusco, Chateaugay and Fort Covington, New York are considered "stations" within the Trout River Port of Entry.
# Historically, many roads entering the U.S. had no border inspection station. Before September 11, 2001, it was permissible for persons entering the U.S. to do so at any point (including back roads or closed border stations), as long as they proceeded directly to an open border inspection station. In fact, the
U.S. Customs Service and
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003.
Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, ...
routinely rented property in houses, post offices, and storefronts far from the physical border, and people entering the U.S. were expected to travel to these locations without stopping so they could make their declarations. This policy has since changed, and most of the roads entering the U.S. at locations other than an open and staffed border inspection station have since been barricaded.
Variations
In some countries, immigration procedures are carried out by the armed forces rather than specific immigration officers. However, in most, the levying of duty on imports is still carried out by customs officers. Immigration clearance in some ports of entry have automated sections open to the country's own residents or citizens, such as the
E-Channel
e-Channel, also known as The Automated Passenger Clearance System, is an expedited border control system introduced by the Hong Kong Immigration Department in 2004, designed to speed up border immigration processes for residents of Hong Kong, Ma ...
found in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
and
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
,
Global Entry
Global Entry is a program of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service that allows pre-approved, low-risk travelers to receive expedited clearance upon arrival into the United States through automatic kiosks at select airports and via the S ...
found at some airports in the United States and other similar country-instituted programs.
On some international borders, the concept of a port of entry does not exist or is at least not applied to select countries of free-crossing pacts. Travelers may cross the border wherever and whenever convenient. For example, and as such a pact, most EU citizens may travel freely within the
Schengen Area, which is made up entirely of EU member countries (though not all EU countries participate and thus are not within the Schengen Area). As with the example, in some cases, such free travel may be restricted to citizens of specific countries and to travelers who are not carrying goods over the customs limits; others may only cross the border at a designated
border crossing
Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...
during its opening times.
See also
*
Border
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...
*
Border checkpoint
A border checkpoint is a location on an international border where travelers or goods are inspected and allowed (or denied) passage through. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. Access-controlled borders ofte ...
*
Border control
Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...
*
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
*
Schengen Agreement
The Schengen Agreement ( , ) is a treaty which led to the creation of Europe's Schengen Area, in which internal border checks have largely been abolished. It was signed on 14 June 1985, near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, by five of the t ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Port Of Entry
Freight transport
Borders