Rights or Privileges? Hidden Rules Behind Your Passports

Whenever I arrive at Lisbon or other European airports, I notice tiny signs separating passengers into different queues before passport control offices. They are not the typical signs of dividing arrival passengers into nationals, diplomats, and the rest. Rather, they open an extra green light to ease the entrance check for citizens of the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Those burgundy or mazarine passport covers with gilding country names guarantee passengers from the 31 EU/EEA/EFTA countries a more accessible and convenient track to enter their neighbors. It’s primarily visa-free, and usually, the customs officers don’t bother to ask you offensive questions like “are you pregnant?” or “how much money do you possess?” to ensure you will not illegally remain in this country without a permitted visa extension.

Passports, it seems, have coded meanings. According to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa, two annual indices rank passports measure passport’s usefulness: The Henley Passport Index and the Passport Index. European countries, like Spain, Italy, and Finland, and some developed Asian countries like Japan, usually ace in both rankings. The difference between the leading countries and their counterparts on the bottom is huge. Briefly, the more countries and territories each passport holder is guaranteed to travel visa-free or obtain visas on arrival; the country is positioned higher in the power rank. For instance, according to the latest Henley Passport Index released in April, Japan slew the game by offering gigantic destination accessibility to 193 countries, whereas its Asian neighbors such as Afghanistan merely guarantee its passport holders with less than 30 destinations.

Ranking passports in terms of usefulness is essentially ranking human beings. Powerful passports bestow their possessors more accessibility, which means more convenient interviews at the immigration checkpoints and a less tedious visa application process – because mostly, they do not need to apply for a visa before traveling. It is a true privilege. But for those who possess a less useful passport, travel, or sometimes family reunions internationally, is never simply holiday enjoyment but probably dilemmas within the entire process to enter a particular country. These passports are less-privileged, whose carriers are less-privileged.

Before entering these European countries, I am asked to apply for a visa, frequently a Schengen visa. The Schengen countries refer to 27 European countries between which border controls have been abolished and visa policies are jointly recognized. To travelers like me, a valid Schengen visa can guarantee free mobility within these 27 countries. But the application process is usually complicated. There is often proof of college enrollment (since I am still a student) and a lengthy bank statement for the past six months. My travel advisor Liu Ting told me when I applied for a French Schengen visa for the first time, “It’s better if your parents provide a certificate of deposit in the application file. It could be about 50,000 CNY (equivalent to about 8,000 USD) or more because it adds credibility that you are just a wealthy traveler and you will definitely go back to China.”

Ironically, I have never been a “wealthy traveler.” I come from a family whose annual income is on the average level (about 9,000 USD) in my hometown. Still, I am asked to demonstrate my family wealth before I can take a holiday trip. In some visa services provided by well-known travel companies, such as Ctrip, a certificate of deposit with at least 50,000 CNY is required for visa application. The bottom line, as a Chinese citizen who possesses an unprivileged passport, ranked at 52 out of 82 according to the Passport Index, I have to demonstrate the “privilege” and right to travel based on my wealth. In contrast, those I travel with in the same aircraft cabin only need to carry a more privileged passport.

Despite the burdensome visa application process, you might encounter embarrassing questions before physically entering your dream destinations. Ena Palaska, a possessor of a Bosnian passport, experienced exactly the same thing when she arrived in France for an international conference. Although she obtained a valid Schengen visa and an invitation letter, the immigration officers still stopped her and asked for bank statements, bookings for accommodation, and round-trip flight tickets. “It feels like we, not a French and an EU or EEA or EFTA citizen, are from another side of the world. They are privileged to enter the country freely, but we are not. And their privilege is merely given by their passports.”

As the most universally utilized travel document, the passport has deep roots in colonial history. Indian scholar Radhika Singh wrote that passports were designed to restrict the mobility of non-white folks indentured workers and jailed convicts in Britain-controlled India, who were among the first modern passport holders. Nowadays, everyone needs to have at least one to travel across borders. But as the passport power rank indicates, different countries’ passports grant different levels of mobility, passport privilege emerges. Passport privilege has been widely discussed in academia. Uday Chandra, a professor of government from Georgetown University, points out the connection between passport privilege and its colonial past. Even after colonialism ended, people from the Global North could go to most places. In contrast, those from the formerly colonized parts of the world, or the Global South, face many restrictions based on the passports they carry. “In sum, colonial legacies continue to matter for us,” Chandra added.

In order to solve the passport-related issues once and for all, Giordana Bido, a Brazilian of Italian descent, chose to fight for her second passport. She took about ten years to get her Italian passport. “It’s my basic right, as I have the legitimate document to prove my Italian descent. Then, I asked myself, why not?” The unremitting efforts did pay back. Giordana now has two passports, essentially broadening her future travel plans and capacities. Now, she can travel across the Europa continent without a visa and apply to European universities as a local student. Talking about her future study plans, Giordana cannot hide her excitement, “the educational resources become more accessible, and the tuition is lower because I am no longer defined as an international student. My life track is totally changed.”

Indeed, the idea of getting a better passport is not even a possibility for most of the people carrying an unprivileged passport in the Global South. And as time has moved on, the game of passport privilege has changed due to more bilateral and multilateral agreements between countries. In addition, as the coronavirus pandemic strikes international travel, travel restrictions implemented by different countries in terms of vaccination and pandemic situations profoundly twist the game of passport privilege.

Vaccine passports and globally approved vaccine certificates are among the most potent disrupters in the codified game of passport privilege. In the specific context, passport privilege has been replaced and somehow deepened by the vaccine privilege. The Global South and, in general, people from the unprivileged hierarchy who are unable to access coronavirus vaccination in time once again encounter an alternative form attached to vaccine passports. “A new form of global inequality” is how Euronews puts it. However, the World Tourism Ethics Committee (UNWTO), at the same time, suggested the removal of financial barriers burdening people from accessing Covid-19 certifications as it would be “discriminatory.”

On March 17th, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen outlined proposals for the vaccine passport within the EU: ‘digital green pass.’ Once the EU vaccine passport had been introduced to the public, it met with climbers and skepticism. In France, anti-vaccine passport activists frequently stage protests to voice for disadvantaged people in the vaccine campaign and to oppose the new precautions that connect vaccination and public mobility. “The government is forcing people first to get vaccines and then recover the mobility people are supposed to have without any limitation.” Claude, a protestor from Nice, said about the digital green pass and mandatory vaccination policy in France, “And the whole [public health] system is in chaos, filled with inequality and misinformation. It’s a shame on France.” The public discussion once again leads back to the central argument: does a passport grant people privileges or fundamental human rights?