a) is because as I understand it it's /very/ hard to legally refuse to readmit a US citizen. You can seize all their stuff at the border but besides arresting them for a crime you can't really keep them from coming home.
You can't refuse to readmit a US citizen (as in a person that can prove that they're readily a US citizen). They can force you into quarantine and take all your stuff, but you have a right to be in the country.
Even without a passport? If I rocked up to the border of my country without a passport I'm pretty sure I'd be thrown into a detention centre if I wasn't deported on the spot.
Yes, you cannot be refused entry as a US citizen even without a passport. You will be greatly inconvenienced, but not refused. You may be held in a detention center or holding facility until such time as your identity can be verified.
You'd be detained but if you asserted you are a US citizen they are obligated to try and establish the truth of your claim. They'll call family and friends and access government records. In an edge case, I imagine they'd hold a hearing with an immigration judge.
In college, friends of mine frequently went out partying in Tijuana and occasionally lost their passports. They were usually held for a few hours at the border crossing and given a hard time and a stern lecture about responsible behaviour before being readmitted to the US.
You and OP are both right. No one will let you (as a US citizen) board an aircraft back to the US without a passport (so you'll have to head over to a local embassy to get a replacement if you don't have one on your person), but CBP must (not shall, must) allow you re-admittance at a land border without a passport (at which point they will verify your citizenship through a tedious process).
> You can't refuse to readmit a US citizen (as in a person that can prove that they're readily a US citizen)
Note the: as in a person that can prove that they're readily a US citizen. If you don't have a passport, you probably can't readily prove you are a citizen.
> a) is because as I understand it it's /very/ hard to legally refuse to readmit a US citizen. You can seize all their stuff at the border but besides arresting them for a crime you can't really keep them from coming home.
The trick is to get the airline to be your police and refuse them boarding. Then your only choice is to get to a Port of Entry via Canada, Mexico, private jet or chartered boat.
There may well be flights. Crew are exempt, so at least for slot-controlled airports it's probably worth flying anyway to keep the slot; you'll have some US citizens / permanent residents and their families, and you can fill the belly with cargo since you have spare weight. Might be worth it even for airports that aren't slot-controlled.
Here in NZ the largest airport with such slots has waived that rule for the duration meaning that airlines can reduce their flights without losing their slots (and therefore be more likely still be around to be a customer for the airport when it is all over)
Various aviation authorities in Europe are relaxing the requirements that is driving the slot controls & ghost flights. Don't have the link now but read it earlier.
I suspect UK was left off because POTUS has resorts in Ireland and Scotland, and no where in Europe. There's nothing credible about UK being off the list while every surrounding country is on it.
The UK is an Island nation with entry controls - passports are required even from the EU and there is at least token screening at the airports and docks of people with fever or other virus symptoms.
Not that it’s the same thing, but being an island (so no walking traffic) and having some screening in place means that the UK simply doesn’t have certain diseases (like rabies) that are at least somewhat common in Europe.
Honestly though, the UK is one of, if not THE, staunchest ally of the US and banning its citizens would cause some minor political issues.
Note that technically the UK does not require passports for entry from the EU - identity cards are also fine.
Having travelled back to the UK from a Schengen country in the past few days, I can also confirm that there wasn’t so much as a poster in the airport, let alone any actual screening.
I don't think I've ever had anything that even counts as token screening flying into the UK from Europe - passport check is automated and I've never even seen someone at customs for many years.
No offence intended to Americans, but those guys are culturally much tougher negotiators than us. When they know they have leverage over you they don't hold back at all. We get caught out by this over and over again because we speak the same language so we think we understand what's going on, but we aren't awake to the nuances.
You might want to google Tizard Exchange for what happens when the US has us over a barrel. Or look at the outcomes of pretty much any attempt to extradite an American citizen vs US attempts to extradite a UK citizen.
If at all possible, try to get a flight back on a US carrier or a connecting flight via London. It's more likely that Delta/United/American will operate a flight back to the US than for example Lufthansa flying a mostly empty plane to the US. Not in the least because it would look bad in PR terms for a US based airline to leave US citizens stranded in Europe, while a European carrier not flying to the US would attribute the same decision to "Trump does not allow us in".
IANAL, but while lawful permanent residents do not have the same protections, they still have certain protections that make it legally unclear whether the president can categorically bar entry without an immigration court proceeding for each individual:
"Section 212(f) can certainly apply to applicants for immigrant visas. Whether it can apply to an LPR who is returning and not seeking admission is questionable. This is because under section 101(a)(13)(C), an LPR being covered by a Presidential Proclamation under section 212(f) would not cause the LPR to be considered to be seeking admission."
"An alien returning to the United States who has been granted lawful permanent resident status cannot be regarded as seeking an admission and may not be charged with inadmissibility under section 212(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a) (2012), if he or she does not fall within any of the exceptions in section 101(a)(13)(C) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C) (2012)."
