Being in an international zone, you can always try:

Sprechen Sie auch Englisch ?

Do you also speak English ?

The answer is almost always a yes and would make both parties comfortable.

.... if you add 'bitte' at the end it is even better. And something like 'leider ist mein Deutsch nicht so gut, danke'.

Yikes you mean, only people in hoodies and trainers reading tabloids and in 2nd class should be stopped... now who's profiling.

But that is exactly what they are looking for, if you don't look local (Asian in Asia, white (generally) in Europe, coloured in Africa) you are probably not local, and therefore require some form of permit to be there. This requirement gives them the authority to ask to see it, and any traveller should expect any to be asked to produce it and behave (however frequently it happens) with a certain realisation and modicum of understanding. I treat it as a bonus if I whizz through passport/customs when I travel.

I'm white and I used to travel frequently through a very small regional airport in the far north of Scotland, and I was stopped quite often by the white customs guys who wondered why they saw me as often as the woman in the canteen. Now should I have played the why are you Scots chappies picking on poor old Johnny English card, or accept a smart suit does not exempt you from being asked a few question? These bods' just have a job to do, but some, regardless of colour feel that any request for doc's or reason for travel is some form of harassment and I genuinely don't get it.

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How do you know if a Frenchman has been in your garden.... your rubbish is gone, your dog is pregnant.... but at least your cabbages are pest free

I generally ask the Geneva border guards to speak German & French with the Swiss German ones, they offer English very quickly, never fails!

really so why only stop at me and nobody else in the carriage? If they asked anyone else I wouldn't have said anything.

There is nothing wrong in this episode. The immigration officer is just doing her duty and its our duty to show the required papers.

Always travel with a couple of sex toys in your luggage. They will still contole and check everything, but you'll have some untertainment looking at them.

Good grief, what would I think if I was at Zurich airport with honky family and were asked where we were going......2/3 passports were those nice red ones.

Maybe it's Tallism or Hairism in my case?

In your original post you didn't mention that you were stopped all the time. If you are stopped all the time, the logical thing to do is to stick your resident permit in with your passport.

Trust me you're not the only one who gets stopped. A good friend of the family gets stopped ALL the time everywhere he goes and he's Swiss and white.

Let's hope your little out burst isn't going to cause you a little note in your record and more problems.

And all this you got from a bad experience with Cablecom????

Perhaps it is a non-EU thing, but I always present both my passport and my B permit when I go through immigration out of the Schengen area. At Zürich Flughafen, they usually take 30 seconds to scan my passport and card, have a glance or two at my face, and I am on my way. No hassle, no fuss. I usually give the immigration officer a smile and a 'Grüezi' when I greet them and a smile and a 'Merci' on the way out. Oh, and I am not of European descent either. Why don't you try that next time and see how you get on...

So what happened to the T&C's here? Grynch gets banned for being an "ungrateful asshole" and Baldovino gets away with calling everyone "racist assholes"?

This doesn't compute....

I am trying very hard ,it takes one to know one

i was stopped and asked lots of questions,
passport scanned, asked for permit - nope dont carry that with me.
lots of other questions,
guy made a phone call.

i was there for 5 mins and ended with a goodbye have a good trip etc.

i know someone who works the border and asked him to scan my passport if there is any marker on my details - there was nothing.

the guy was just being a bit difficult.

dont take it as a racist thing at all, i think you are just being overly sensitive and looking for an issue where non exists.

You forgot white trash.

Care to explain which part of my post was supposed to be racist? I did not even mention the OP's race or the fact that he felt discriminated against because of is race/skin color.

Yup, rumbled. My KKK barbecue was well attended, we toasted the Aryan breed and afterwards we'll kidnap some poor "B permit" holder and force feed them some Swiss yokel literature and sing the national anthem at full volume whilst living off all the benefits that their taxation brings us.

You tell us exactly what you find to be racist in this thread and use some basic language that your IQ befits.

Basically it all comes down to this: border people can ruin your day if they decide not to let you through for a reason. Best tou can do is be polite and do what they ask. Much easier for everybody.

I travel frequently and never show my permit. Last time i got asked for it and the border guy told me i need to show that as well. No problem. I did and end of story. I agree that they never smile but i made that into a game. I go there with my biggest smile and try to make them smile as well. Altough some woman in Zurich airport started joking with my OH.

The biggest problem i have is that most people still dont know that Cyprus is in the EU and do all sorts of checks while my english OH gets nor checked at all. I was even told i needed a visa to travel to the UK last year. I told the lady no i dont and that was the end of that

Agreed. Most of us agree that the OP over reacted, even the OP accepts that, and that he should have not snapped.

But come on- you must be very naive if you think that 'ueber' profiling does not go on. Do you know many customs officers? Some of them are really nice guys/gals but they are rarely well-traveled, and most of them have a tendency for the right, and some the far right. No I am not stereotyping here- it is a fact. Many of them belong to the UDC- fact- and the Head of our local police was until a few months ago the vice-president of the UDC. Some jobs do attract certain 'types' with certain 'values'- don't keep your head in the sand

Profiling goes on in pretty much anything that is related with the official side of travel be it security, immigration or customs. Some of what they do are random checks, but a lot is based on information received or profiles. It's not a coincidence that you don't often see orthodox Jews having their hold baggage examined when they fly El Al to Israel. Is it racist? No. Is it discriminatory? Absolutely, but the discrimination is based on risk profiles and the people responsible make no bones about it.