In our globalized world, it is incredibly common for a president, prime minister, king,
chancellor, supreme leader, and other world leaders to visit other countries on diplomatic
missions.
Unlike the world of us normies however, diplomats and high-level politicians travel in a very
different way, especially when it comes to customs and immigration.
So, what exactly is the protocol for the lizard people…
I mean the leaders and representatives of the world’s countries?
(Sponsored by CuriosityStream)
Hello and welcome to episode 300-something-or-other of The Passport Channel.
For most countries, there are at least three different types of passports.
Most of us will use a normal, every day passport intended for normal people travelling for
normal business or leisure purposes.
However, if you work for the government, this likely doesn’t apply to you in the same
way, as there are two other types in most countries: diplomatic and official passports,
each with their own requirements, designs, and even visa privileges.
Let’s talk about diplomatic passports first.
As implied in the name, diplomatic passports are of course given to diplomats when they
go to represent their country in an embassy or consulate, or for some other purpose that
requires their nation to be represented in some way by a special person.
Diplomatic passports often have different visa requirements than normal passports, and
often even have their own immigration counters at some major airports.
It should be noted however that merely possessing a diplomatic passport doesn‘t automatically
grant the holder diplomatic immunity, for that a diplomat of course needs special clearance
on top of their diplomatic passport.
This such passport is often also what’s given to a country’s leader and their accompanying
staff.
For example, the President of the United States gets a black US diplomatic passport when they
enter office (and are allowed to keep after they leave office) which in this case also
has the sentence “THE BEARER IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES” printed on one of
the pages, which probably gives a few border agents a bit of a jump occasionally.
When a world leader arrives at an airport in another country however, the party does
not line up to get their passports stamped, instead the party goes on their own way while
everyone‘s passports are brought in to be checked and stamped behind the scenes.
Remember, government visits (much like spaceflights) are highly planned and heavily orchestrated
events, the President of France isn’t exactly the type of person to jump the fence at the
airport and illegally immigrate to Canada or anything like that.
Of course there is one thing that I’m sure you’re all going to be dying for me to mention,
which is that Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t need a passport.
This is of course because the inside cover of the British passport says, “Her Britannic
Majesty's Secretary of State Requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those
whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and
to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.”
which basically means that all British passports are of course issued in the Queen’s name,
meaning that she can basically waive herself through but every other member of the royal
family cannot (and I mean a border guard isn’t going to come across the Queen and have to
tell her apart from any other 93-year old British woman, you can generally tell when
you’re dealing with the real deal).
So that was relatively straightforward, but of course this video is kind of short as it
is, so I’m going to use an old trick of mine and turn this video into a video on similar
types of passport, since there are still lots.
For example, when one is sent to another country by their government but not as a diplomat
or on a diplomatic mission or on any other formal affairs they will likely be given a
service passport, also known as an official passport, yet another type of special passport
given to government workers (and often their families) who are traveling abroad for their
jobs at the government, but are nonetheless not part of the diplomatic corp and are not
serving as ambassadors.
On a somewhat similar note is the United Nations Laissez-Passer, a passport-shaped travel document
given to officials of the UN and other select agencies, notably the World Bank, IMF, WHO,
WTO, WTO, WTF, YMCA, RESPECT, and several others for those traveling on official business.
Like actual passports, they also provide visa-free travel to certain select countries, assuming
the border guard in question even knows what it is.
No really, that happens so often that its Wikipedia page actually warns that many immigration
officers might not actually realize it’s a real travel document.
However the blue one does come with some diplomatic immunity while the red version comes with
full diplomatic immunity.
Okay now for a rapid-fire list of slightly related documents to wrap up this video.
Interpol gives its officers their own Interpol Travel Documents, basically special Interpol
passports for on-duty officers traveling between Interpol member nations to waive any visa
requirements in case of any emergency that that particular officer might be needed for.
Refugee travel documents are also documents given to refugees by the country they have
fled to in order to allow them to leave and return to their country of choice (except
for in Australia), however they also fall under the problem of immigration officers
occasionally not knowing what these things are.
Finally Hajj passports are documents issued by a handful of countries for purposes of
attending the Hajj in Mecca, though many of these (highlighted with the green lines) only
do this for their Muslim citizens (which to be fair you’re kind of already doing by
default anyway), but in most cases people just get a Hajj visa in their regular passport.
Jordan however also gives temporary Jordanian passports to Israeli Muslims, since of course
Israeli citizens are not allowed to visit Saudi Arabia at all.
The list of these kinds of special passports almost never ends, but I have to end this
video somewhere.
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Thanks for watching, it was nice to make a passport video again, it’s been a while
since I’ve done one of these.
If you want to see more of these give this video a like to let me know.
Also, just to confuse everyone who didn’t watch through the ad, type “Duck!
The blue wizard is coming!” in the comments.
As always be sure to like, share, and subscribe to learn something new every Sunday.