To get into Switzerland, you need to be rich
A 30-year-old Tunisian citizen named Douraid was stopped by police on a street in Geneva. He had no ID, no passport, no other identification documents, no residence permit in Switzerland, and could not indicate a permanent place of residence; in other words, he was homeless.
In the decision on his case, issued by prosecutor Alexandra Clivaz-Butler on September 9 in an administrative procedure under expedited proceedings, Douraid was charged with not having "sufficient funds for the duration of his stay in Switzerland, nor funds to purchase a return ticket." After two days in pretrial detention, the young man was fined an amount equivalent to 43 days in prison.
The Geneva prosecutor's office processes dozens of such cases each month. Sometimes foreigners illegally residing in Switzerland are detained by law enforcement in connection with drug trafficking offenses or violent crimes. In most cases, simply being in Switzerland—even without a visa, residence permit, or a specified amount of money in an account—is enough to detain them and sentence them to either a fine or imprisonment.
Cases almost never go to trial: usually everything is limited to a hearing before the prosecutor, who sets the fine. Only a few of those detained can afford to hire a lawyer. Their financial situation, if mentioned at all during the proceedings, is mentioned only in passing.
Article 5, paragraph b, of the Federal Act on the Status of Foreign Nationals and Stateless Persons in the Swiss Confederation, as amended in 2005, stipulates that foreign nationals wishing to enter Switzerland must prove they have sufficient funds to cover their stay in the country (notwendige finanzielle Mittel). However, the law contains no further details.
In response to a request from Swissinfo.ch, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) stated that a person wishing to enter the country must "prove that they have about 100 Swiss francs per day for living expenses." For students, the amount is 30 francs per day. "The necessary funds can be demonstrated by showing cash, traveler's checks, credit cards, or other bank guarantees," SEM explains.
If a person is stopped at the airport upon entry and cannot prove their financial solvency, they may be immediately "turned away" and sent back home. If a similar situation arises from a detention already inside Switzerland, the person may face administrative proceedings, a fine, and even, under certain circumstances, deportation to their home country. This requirement does not apply to persons residing in Schengen countries. However, citizens of states, for example, from the post-Soviet space, should be especially careful here.
Let us clarify that this provision was introduced by Switzerland to ensure that these individuals, including those who come for three months (the maximum period of a single stay possible under a tourist visa), still have a kind of "anchor" in their home country in the form of financial assets and that they will not try to stay in the Confederation at the risk of losing those assets. In other words, Switzerland wants to know for sure that the tourist has material motives to return home. And that is why visa applicants are so strictly required to comply with this provision, even for short-term stays in Switzerland.
Melissa Lawrence from the Center for the Study of Legal Issues in Asylum and Migration Law in Western Switzerland (Observatoire romand du droit d'asile et des étrangers, ODAE) recalls a case involving a Colombian woman.
"She applied for a visa because she wanted to visit her daughter, who lives permanently here and had just given birth. This woman had a very good standard of living for her country, but still, her bank account did not have the required 9,000 francs, which is the amount officially needed to obtain a visa for 90 days," explains Lawrence. "Therefore, her visa application was denied, and the law does not require Swiss consular officials to explain the reasons for refusal in any particular detail. Of course, I understand that Switzerland is indeed a very expensive country, but who in the world has the ability to just pull out 100 francs for one day of living here?"
Switzerland is far from the only country that ties the issuance of entry visas to foreign nationals with criteria of financial solvency. Canada, for example, also requires this of persons temporarily residing in the country. As for other European countries, the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration's explanation contains a brief summary of the financial criteria for visa issuance for each of these countries.
For example, to obtain a visa for Greece, one must have funds at the rate of 50 euros per day of stay. In France, this amount is 65 euros per day if staying in hotels, and 35 euros per day if staying with relatives or friends.
According to ODAE, against this backdrop, the legislation provides employees of Swiss consular offices abroad with “overly flexible opportunities and rights in terms of assessing the degree of financial solvency of persons who have applied for a short-term visa, and in practice such requirements are always rather tightened.”
For example, many Swiss consular offices begin to suspect people of deception solely on the basis of a significant difference in living standards and incomes between Switzerland and the country whose passport the visa applicant holds.
“Given the fact that our country is one of the richest in the world, this argument would theoretically be valid for almost any situation. Therefore, certain categories of visa applicants, for example, a young, not very wealthy African, can legally obtain a visa to Switzerland almost impossible. References to family circumstances, such as the desire to simply come to a wedding with relatives in Europe, do not help either. All the same, the chances of obtaining a visa for such persons are very slim.”
Marie MORISSE.
Translated by Nadezhda Kapone.