Originally Posted by
gofer
A very fine point of law, but used in many countries. Any lawyers care to comment!
'Fraid so. I don't believe this is correct. When the aircraft has landed, the person is in the EU and in the country concerned, and the treaties (Conventions) on asylum and human rights already apply. If you ask for asylum on the jetway, you still have to be dealt with as an asylum seeker.
Checking passports on the jetway is not so that people can be sent back before those treaties apply to them. It is so that anyone who doesn't have a passport or other travel document and is therefore going to have to be dealt with as an illegal/asylum seeker is identified at the outset together with the flight on which they arrived, before they mingle with other passengers.